


Urban Legends

by idigam



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cryptids, Cryptozoology, Fluff and Angst, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Matt's a goof, Urban Legends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-08-17 03:49:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 55,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16508852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idigam/pseuds/idigam
Summary: Matt's hunt for an elusive desert cryptid turns out to be way more than the summer project he had intended when the seven foot tall surprisingly crass cryptid in question turns out to be very real.





	1. Campfire Stories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [discordiansamba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/discordiansamba/gifts).



Matt has been bouncing around the Garrison school all week, it might have gotten him booted from a couple classes, which were mandatory computer science classes. Which he’s incredibly bored in because seriously? They’re intro courses? Why neither of his parents bothered to pull strings so he could skip them is beyond him. Something about reviewing the fundamentals, and building character, which is parent for “suck it up.”

 

Still he’s practically vibrating though, because finally he gets to get Shiro on a camping trip with he and his dad. More importantly though his father finally got his sister to agree to try it. His sister for whom a backyard barbecue is too much outdoors adventure.

 

Of course he’s spent the last month cooking up a way to scare her, because he has read the big brother’s manual cover to cover. Now’s the hard part though.

 

“No,” Shiro says completely deaf to his plight.

 

“C’mon” he’s whining he has enough self-awareness to know he’s whining, why? Because the only way to wear Shiro down is through attrition, perseverance, and being as annoying as physically possible. Because Matt has also skimmed the little brother’s handbook too.

 

“No,” Shiro repeats.

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because she’s going to know what you’re up to and she’s going to be mad. She’ll also make you look like an idiot, she’ll make me look like an idiot if I help you.”

 

He takes a sip from his water bottle, “or worse you’ll succeed in scaring her. I remember when you tried to freak her out when she was eight.”

 

“It was a youtube video, I didn’t think she’d be that bad!”

 

“You knew she would be, you used my laptop, which I remind you, she punched.”

 

“You made me buy you a new one so it all worked out.”

 

Shiro does not look convinced, “your sister is a vindictive angry person, I don’t want to be on her bad side.”

 

“Shiro,” Matt smirks, “are you afraid of her?”

 

Shiro looks at Matt, he’s very unimpressed with this tactic, “yes, there is no shame in admitting that. Your sister is insanely smart, but she’s also insane. I would rather not find my car battery hooked up to my car door.”

 

“That only happened once, and you weren’t even the recipient.”

 

“That still shows your sister’s idea of ‘reasonable response,’ so no Matt, you want to piss her off you’re on your own.”

 

“Traitor, I’ve been traitored by Garrison dad Shiro! Worst kind traitoring!”

 

“That was dubious English at best, goodbye Matt, see you this weekend.”

****

 

 

Matt sighs, losing Shiro will mean he has to get creative, a pulley system, a strobe, and a wireless radio. Some creative sound design and he has a means, now to figure out a way to set the mood. Good thing Matt has an established presence on certain forums and servers.

 

InvaderMatt: sup friendorinos?

SwollenEye: not much, you?

InvaderMatt: oh, nothing, just looking for some weirdness for a camping project.

 CubanScotsman: Uh oh, someone’s up to something. You gonna share?

 InvaderMatt: Nooope~

 SwollenEye: Boo! C’mon, this sounds neat!

 InvaderMatt: Sorry, I must keep all potential leaks on the down low, what I need from you my wonderful grapevine is some Galaxy Garrison stories. I know there are all sorts of things floating around the big military space program, but I need something with an actual event behind it.

 SwollenEye: I think that’s more the purview of the Cuban, I thought you knew someone who worked for the Garrison?

 InvaderMatt: lots of people technically, and me, well, I’m a cadet, but advanced courses. Too bad everyone’s stupid tightlipped about the good stuff. Just an fyi, no we do not have aliens, trust me, my dad would be all over that if we did.

 CubanScotsman: Hmm, I know a couple things, actually applying to the Garrison in a couple years, so I uh did my research. Also lame, that blows away all the fun stuff.

 SwollenEye: Research? Oh buddy boy, you are probably on a watch list or something now.

 CubanScotsman: Shut up eye, you know they don’t give a crap, especially not if Matt’s a cadet.

 InvaderMatt: Hey! If I’m going to be so rudely addressed I will take my ball and go home!

 CubanScotsman: No you wont, you want my sweet sweet lore.

 InvaderMatt: Damn, you called my bluff.

 CubanScotsman: I’ll help you but only if you tell us about I once you’re done, also we will disavow all knowledge of this if you end up on the news.

 InvaderMatt: Fair, now hit me.

 CubanScotsman: Well, the place has actually been surprisingly quiet for the most part, there’s a couple of campers getting injured and/or disappearing, there’s also that Garrison pilot turned firefighter that vanished like eight years ago or something.

 InvaderMatt: Mmm, yeah no on that one, dad apparently knew the guy and he gets touchy about that particular subject. If he’s around for this story he’s gonna flip on me.

 CubanScotsman: Fair.

 CubanScotsman: Well there’s the meteor.

 InvaderMatt: Meteor? I haven’t heard about that?

 CubanScotsman: Oh-ho! Mister cadet, have I got a tale for you then!

 CubanScotsman: Okay

 CubanScotsman: So

 CubanScotsman: Apparently there was this meteor that fell out of the sky, like two weeks back, I heard from my cousin. He’s a state trooper around the area and he’s the best because he relayed this right to me since ya know it’s mah jam.

 CubanScotsman: Anyway, so apparently a meteor hit earth, but the best anyone can tell is it broke up coming in because people saw it fall but they only found a small crater. My cousin was with the first responders, and he said that whatever it was made of hardcore messed with their gear. Because all their equipment went a bit haywire around the crater.

 CubanScotsman: My cuz is no dummy though, he managed to snag a sample from the site along with some of the other guys before the Garrison swooped in and swept it all up. Apparently they got it looking like nothing happened in like three hours.

 InvaderMatt: Damn.

 CubanScotsman: Anyway, here’s the thing, apparently there was traces of a metal alloy that could not be identified and was definitely not of terrestrial origin.

 InvaderMatt: Nice, that I can work with.

 CubanScotsman: It gets better.

 InvaderMatt: Fuck, really?!

 CubanScotsman: Oh yeah, so you know the big hippie festival?

 InvaderMatt: Oh god, I wouldn’t trust anything from that group, judgmental this may be, but I’ve seen what get taken at those things.

 CubanScotsman: Oh yeah neither would I, until I heard the suspiciously similar stories from campers.

 InvaderMatt: Oh?

 CubanScotsman: Uh huh, ransacked, they’re already calling it the “Garrison Ghoul.”

 InvaderMatt: Aw, but it sounds like an alien, not a demon.

 CubanScotsman: Eh, you know how these things go

 InvaderMatt: I mean, yeah but still.

 

Matt smiles to himself, he could definitely work with this.

 

InvaderMatt: Aight, I can definitely work with this thanks guys.

 InvaderMatt has gone offline.

 Greensunszenith: Bastard

 CubanScotsman: como?

 SwollenEye: ???

 Greensunszenith: He’s been planning something for weeks, I knew he was up to something the minute he heard I was going camping with them. I don’t even like the outdoors, ergo, bastard.

 CubanScotsman: Younger sister or brother? You I mean.

 Greensunszenith: What makes you think I’m younger?!

 CubanScotsman: Uh, because I have three older siblings, two younger siblings, and two nieces and a nephew. Older siblings try to scare the younger and younger siblings lurk on forums to spy on the elder.

 Greensunszenith: ...Okay, fine, yes, younger, and sister, but just an fyi; I was lurking here before I knew that jackass was my brother.

 CubanScotsman: You’re deleting these once you’re done though right?

 Greensunszen: Of course, DM the info you have on that though it sounds interesting.

 CubanScotsman: aight.

 SwollenEye: What has my server turned into?

****

 

 

Finally the day arrives and everyone gets driven out to the scrublands.

 

Matt immediately sets about to finding a good place to set up. Katie continues to hide in the camper, because even though she been dragged to the great outdoors she’s not going to even pretend she enjoys it out here.

 

Shiro just frowns and begins setting up the campsite, Sam chuckles walking over to him. “Katie, Matt, please come out here and help, I didn’t raise you kids to leave all the work to a _guest_ did I?”

 

Katie comes stomping out of the camper and starts helping Shiro, “Matt went off in that direction.” Shiro points over towards the scrub and Sam sighs.

 

“Of course he did, he’s on dish duty tonight then.”

 

Katie smirks, “honestly does he really think he’s going to get the drop on me like that?”

 

Shiro just shakes his head “I told him it was a bad idea.”

****

 

 

Sam finds his son planting what looks like a portable speaker in the base of a shrub and already knows exactly what’s going on. “Matt,” he arcs an eyebrow and makes a gesture.

 

Matt frowns and hands over the speaker, Sam makes the gesture again, Matt scowls and hands over his remote control.

 

“How far out are we, two hundred meters?” Sam asks examining the devices.

 

“Something like that,” Matt pouts.

 

“Hmm, these commercial pieces don’t tend to have that much range. You tweaked it?”

 

“Of course!”

 

“You’re on dish duty, I didn’t bother Katie into leaving her room so you would try and scare her into never coming back.”

 

“It’s my job as her brother.”

 

“And it’s my job as your father to lecture you both about being nice and about the safety of wandering out here by yourself.”

 

“I’m sixteen!”

 

“Which means you should know better. Now come on, you can scare your sister with the tried and true tradition of campfire stories.”

****

 

 

The rest of the evening is blessedly uneventful, Shiro, Sam, Matt, and Katie enjoying the feeling of being full, and looking at the stars. “Alright,” Sam says clapping his hands, “lets get some good ol’ fashioned campfire stories going.”

 

“No point now that Matt’s plan has been thwarted,” Katie points out.

 

“What do you know Pidge, I still have my story and it’s backed up by evidence.”

 

“Don’t call me that, and I think a third hand account taken from your cryptid fans server doesn’t qualify as evidence.”

 

“Wait, how do you? You didn’t crack my security I know that much.”

 

“I’ve been on that server for three months.”

 

“Spy! Saboteur! My own sister!” Matt makes a dramatic face and leans over his seat so it flips backwards like he’s been shot or hit.

 

Sam starts toasting another marshmallow, “Matt don’t do that you’ll wreck the chairs.”

 

Matt flips back like nothing happened, “yeah well I looked into it and there was a meteor a while back, the Garrison did go out there.” He pulls up photos taken by some unseen photographer of a group of Garrison officials standing around a crater next to some state troopers. “And, that there has been a number of sightings of something out in the wilderness here!”

 

Sam sighs, “I told Iverson trying to sweep up a meteor would just make people skeptical.”

 

Matt and Katie both fix him with a stare, “you know about it?”

 

“I’ve been asked to look over the soil samples, Shiro was the one who transported it back to base since he was on base at the time.”

 

Both siblings glare at the other man who sighs, “way to throw me under the bus.”

 

“They’re already mad at me, least I can do is take you down with me.”

 

“You both suck, extraterrestrial elements is a huge deal!” Katie balks.

 

“Especially if they have weird electromagnetic properties,” Matt finishes.

 

Sam raises a brow, “and this is all on a conspiracy board? Someone’s remarkably well informed.”

 

“Yeah, CubanScotsman, he’s the one that gave me the info,” Matt preens.

 

“He DMed me the police report,” Pidge smirks.

 

“Everyone is against me.”

 

“Only because I’m the Alpha Sibling,” she intones clear capitals.

 

“Uh huh, right, because you scream biggest baddest of the pack,” Matt smiles, “Pidge.”

 

“Ugh, Matt I swear to god if you don’t stop...”

 

“What was that? I can’t hear you from all the way down there,” he leans over and pats her head condescendingly.

 

“I will bite you!”

 

Shiro’s about to intervene when the whole valley is filled with a long low bellowing howl. It’s a sound that expresses anguish and distress cutting through the conversation and people listening to it like a knife. Everyone shudders a little bit.

 

Katie holds herself as though cold, “that wasn’t funny Matt.”

 

Shiro nods, “I’m definitely agreeing with Katie on this one.”

 

“That wasn’t me dad took my speaker!”

 

“Matt,” Shiro begins when Sam taps his shoulder.

 

“Shiro look,” creeping up towards the sky is a thin trail of smoke.

****

 

 

The group all pile out of the car taking care to bring out the extinguisher and call it in to the fire brigade. The small shack out in the middle of nowhere, burned to a husk. Once the flames were doused Matt pulled out his phone and started filming. Katie did the same with hers, Sam frowned at them.

 

“Katie! Matt! This was someone’s home!”

 

“Maybe a million years ago, Katie said from the bedroom, or more accurately the closet with a bed in it.

 

“She’s right,” Shiro says looking through the papers, “no one’s been out here in years. Look at this place.”

 

Matt however is the one who makes the truly interesting, if morbid, discovery, “uh guys!”

 

In the back of the shack is a small pile of stones on a mound of earth, a cairn, marking a grave.

 

Before turning to leave Matt holds up his phone and takes one last picture, the flash illuminates a pair of vibrant yellow eyes and there’s a deep angry growl.

 

Yelping Matt nearly drops his phone, he jumps a second time when Katie calls his name. Turning back to the patch of darkness with the eyes he sees… nothing. Sighing he jogs back the camper.

****

 

 

Matt and Katie are sitting in the safety and semi modern comfort of the camper discussing the events, Matt adamant that the whatever it was _must_ have been the alien. “Or it was a cougar, in which case you’re lucky you didn’t get mauled. Actually even if it was our resident cryptid you’re still lucky you didn’t get mauled.” She points out with infuriating logic.

 

“Okay, fine, it might have been a cougar or something, and okay you are probably right about the mauling business.”

 

“You’re still planning on trying to get a photo or something aren’t you?”

 

“Damn straight, wanna help?”

 

Katie holds up both her hands like she’s carefully weighing two objects, “try and photograph a cryptid based on your admittedly lackluster experience? Avoid spending hours on end out in the middle of the desert?” She slams her left hand down like it suddenly weighs a ton, “oh sorry Matt I’m afraid that I don’t actually want to die of exposure this year.”

 

“That hurt didn’t it?”

 

Katie shakes the hand she dramatically brought down on the table, “made my point though, we must suffer for our causes.”

 

“Just wait until we get home and I’m able to clean up my photos.”

 

“Hmm, if you do have convincing enough photographic evidence then I will consider helping you in a non-outdoorsy capacity.”

 

“Ever the magnanimous altruist,” it’s actually hard to tell if Matt’s being sarcastic or if he’s actually trying to butter his sister up. Katie resolves to ignore him either way.

 

It’s at this point that Shiro and their dad return from speaking to the ranger consultant with the Garrison. Because apparently the Galaxy Garrison owns the land the shack’s on and they managed to accidentally across the border between the park and the Garrison's property via a service road. Oops. “Sorry kids but we’re going to have to cut this trip short today.”

 

“Aw, what the what?” Matt gripes, Katie offers a small sigh of relief.

 

“Apparently something tore up the shack pretty good before the fire started, ranger thinks the miscreant black bear knocked over some poorly stowed fuel.”

 

“Black bear?” Matt raises a brow, “not cougar? Also you did not just use the word miscreant.”

 

“I may have. Claw marks were different from a cougars why?”

 

Matt and Katie exchange a look, “okay, I’ll help you look over those photos.”

 

Shiro shoots Sam a concerned look, “should we be worried about this?”

 

Sam shrugs, “probably, but I find it’s easier to let them have their conspiracy theories.”


	2. Monster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who wants to start the day off with some shiny happy feelings?

He’d been stupid, he knows that, he knows he shouldn’t have trusted her, shouldn’t have followed her. He just remembers she’d seemed like the best chance he’d have to escape, to avoid... something. That something, like his name, is gone now, gaping holes where a person had been. The witch, she’s one thing he knows, the witch stole him.

 

No that wasn’t right, he’d been stupid, gone with her, she promised things, he can’t remember all of it anymore. It was like a fairytale, he doesn’t remember which one.

 

He remembers fear, the first time he’d woken up knowing less than the previous day. He remembers the icy fear gripping his heart.

 

He remembers the rage that came after the fear, being subdued, the trip to the lab, the syringes, the claws of the Galra and the horrible unnamable medical devices. Worst of all the poisoned lightening of the witch’s magic.

 

He remembers the blessed oblivion afterwards.

****

 

 

The first time slice, he doesn’t know how long, he just knows waking and oblivion, nothing seemed wrong behind his muddled thoughts not at first. Then he remembers the dimensions of the room being slightly off. The precise discomfort of the world around him was nebulous and distant it wasn’t until the witch came in that the wrongness became obvious. She smiled at him, and something was wrong, like the floor had shifted, his sense of depth was off.

 

This was also when his eyes had finally adjusted to the cell which had been nearly pitch black, that he could see where he was. It was small, there was a hard bed with a nest of cloth in one corner and a toilet in the other. He could also sense something, it took a long time, but during this time slice he’d come to identify the witch, and the other. Both were preceded by a cold, and a sense of dread.

 

A wrongness, he could sense it, almost like the memory of a smell, or a snatch of music from a passing car but not quite a sensation he could put a name to. A sense he has but was never taught the words for.

****

 

 

The next time he’s awoken from oblivion was the first time he notices the changes, the discoloration in his fingers. How had that happened? Maybe it was ink, or staining from the chemicals, the witch often pricked his fingers, he moves, and his clothes were harder to move in.

 

He felt a sinking dread, the witch arrives, had she always been so small? It was so difficult to remember that far back. She smiles, he thought he could overpower her, she’s so small, he’s so angry. So afraid.

 

Her magic flings him against the back wall with no effort, she still smiles wider. “Excellent, you are progressing very well, it’s almost like nature made a mistake your body is eager to correct.”

****

 

 

The next time he is not in oblivion, he’s starting to suspect these are just the times he can remember. The other times are deemed useless, and removed. Or maybe traumatic? It’s hard to tell. He knows he isn’t waking or sleeping as he should.

 

He can hear them, the moans of despair around him, he hadn’t heard their soft cries before. His ears swivel towards the new sounds.

 

His ears shouldn’t do that, he knows that, ears do not swivel, ears cannot move that much. They are not so wide, so dish-like, nor so furry.

 

His hair has grown long and thick, and he can feel much shorter hair beneath it on his shoulders.

 

His hands are totally purple now.

****

 

 

The day he realizes his hair is fur is the day his nails fall out, small streaks of blood, the coppery smell overpowering almost everything. For an instant he wants to tear something apart, the smell setting off a number of strange instincts in him.

 

His nails fall out, it stings, and it itches. He hates it. His hands are purple and he hates it, it reminds him of the robed man that follows the witch. It reminds him of the witch.

****

 

 

After his nails comes the first of his teeth, the fur has spread his clothes rip, his shirt is left open, his pants a mess of shredded cloth around his thighs.

 

The fur is short and soft, it feels good to stroke it. The act of doing so is calming.

 

He hates it, he’ll often pull it, fur is not supposed to be there, pink skin, hairless should be there. His claws are coming in, they itch so he shreds the fabric of his bed. They still itch so terribly.

****

 

 

His teeth come in, they hurt, they are painful and the pressure of them causes him to bleed. His back hurts, his muscles ache, and everything feels bruised.

 

This is his new everyday, every time he is awake, every moment he can remember. Everything hurts. The robed man comes in, he can feel him first, his fur stands on end, and the next thing is he hears him, the soft swish of robes, the mumble of chanting, then he smells him, the smell of dust and forgotten rooms. Some things he smells before he hears, the robed man he hears before he smells.

 

The robed man says he’s to start showing what he can do. He’s expected to find things. Sometimes it’s crystal, or a glowing rock of some form.

 

Other times he must learn which of the robed men is real, he must do this before he is shot with lightening or with fire.

 

The robed man is pleased with him. The robed man is kind where the witch is cruel. He places a soothing hand in his hair, no it’s not hair, not any longer. His mane, the robed man strokes his mane.

 

The robed man says that he does not want to hurt him, that Haggar wants him to be strong, to be able to fulfill his purpose. That he needs to be faster, more precise, better.

 

The robed man talks about quintessence, most of it goes over his head. The robed man gives him his name once he’s able to find him every time.

 

“Kaathe,” he’s told it means ‘hunter,’ he doesn’t want that name, he wants his name. It sounds right enough though, and the robed man tries to be kind so he accepts it.

 

The robed man brings him food, soothes his fur, brushes his mane, and speaks to him.

 

The witch scares him, when she’s displeased, or he isn’t fast enough, she trains him, she is harsher. Sometimes she blinds him and he has to sense her and her magic as she uses it. Sometimes she blinds him and disguises her magic. He only has the half second when she releases her magic to dodge and find her. If he fails he is punished; punishment hurts.

 

The robed man, his other keeper, he is a reward for doing well. He is softer in his approach but not by much. The training still leaves Kaathe exhausted and drained.

****

 

 

He rarely dreams anymore, when he does its muddled, his new instincts leaping to the fore further muddling the few memories he has of his old life. His father is one of the only things he remembers clearly. His life as a child is much easier to recall, not quite as dismantled as the rest of his life. He knows two things though, his father is not here, and won’t be if he ever makes it home, he knows the grief that gnaws at him even if he cannot remember the details of its source.

 

The second thing he knows is tonight he will not dream of childhood, he’s twelve again, he’s run away, he’s not sure from where, or why. He knows there’s someone calling him, he can’t remember the name they used, so close, and yet not nearly close enough.

 

Then he notices her, she’s strange, too tall, too hunched, and too… purple, her eyes have no pupils. How does she see? She stiffens when he walks up to her, “who are you?” People give him funny looks, despite the stranger in strange clothes, with strange skin.

 

“You should not be able to see me,” her voice is a harsh raspy whisper. She examines him, that’s when he notices the black vehicle behind her it looks like a spaceship. “Are you an alien or a witch?”

 

He’s not sure why he asked that, in retrospect it seems like a very stupid question. She smiles anyway, it is not a kind smile, he appreciates that it doesn’t pretend to be though. Something about her sickens him, but it’s not much worse than whoever he’s running from, he remembers their feeling to. She waves her hand and it glows purple for a moment, eventually the people stop giving him funny looks. There’s police, they should want to arrest the woman and take him back to _that place._

 

They don’t, they walk right past him, the woman touches his head, she frowns, like she’s unsure why she did so herself. “I see,” she says because she’s sensed something. “I could take you away from here. I could give you the life you deserve, with your people.” He jerks up at that, she knows, she knows what he’s always known, that he’s weird, different, he frowns, “no one wants to help just because.”

 

That’s not true his dad did, so did someone else, someone he trusts, he can’t remember them, not anymore. The woman smiles, “that’s true, but I could use your help, I am looking for something on this world, you can help me find it. In return I will return you to your people, your rightful people.”

 

He takes her hand, it’s the worst mistake he could have ever made, and he doesn’t even know how long ago he made it. Weeks, months, years, time is meaningless here.

 

He knows that soon he won’t remember anything, part of him wants it, because once he’s forgotten there won’t be any more pain, there won’t be anything but the orders of the witch and the robed man. That is not who he is though, that is despair, and whatever it is they want him to feel. Instead he hates, he knows hate, it is his weapon. He prepares to fight, he’ll die, or be broken beyond repair.

 

At least that’s what he hopes.

****

 

 

The day he decides to end it all in one final attack against the witch is the day the masked stranger arrives. He breaks into the cell, and Kaathe raises his hackles, the masked man’s tail lashes in alarm. “Who are you?” His voice is raw with both disuse and the alterations his changes have wrought on his vocal chords.

 

The other is startled by his speech, and instead puts his knife away, “I am here to free you from Haggar.” The witch, he’s heard her name a couple of times, he hates that name, hates her. He does not trust this man, it might be a trap, or a test of loyalty to the witch, but he does not care. It’s his only chance to escape, so he follows the man.

 

The hall is in ruin, there are destroyed sentries all around, he notices the doctor dead, headless, he just doesn’t care. There’s no satisfaction, he wishes he were more pleased by the death of one of his tormentors. It seems less like a trap since the doctor is dead, but, he still doesn’t trust it, the witch is cruel enough to sacrifice someone to test him. Even if it’s not what does the masked man want? No one acts on simple kindness.

****

 

 

Antok has himself braced, he’s at the final cell in the ship. When they’d received reports of a secret research facility run and frequented by Haggar, Kolivan knew he had to act fast and decisively. It’s why he sent his second to take care of it, they need information, but also to sabotage whatever’s going on. Still the horrors of the previous cells fresh in his mind he needed to take a moment, killing the medical officer in charge wasn’t part of the plan but it’s satisfying. He enters the last cell, expecting to find anything but a half feral Galra juvenile.

 

The Galra growls at him, hackles raised, at first Antok fears he’ll have to dispatch him like the rest then he can hear the hoarse barely audible question. “Who are you?” Whatever he had thought leaves him, this is no longer a simple infiltrate and sabotage mission, it’s a rescue mission as far as Antok’s concerned.

 

The other male is tall, not quite as tall as Antok or likely even Kolivan but given that he’s still young it’s likely he’s still growing. His mane is only minimally kept, his frame is thin, wiry muscle pulled taut cross his bones. His ears swivel to every sound, his feet are concerning, once Antok has a good look at him he realizes he’s not fully Galra. No he’s some chimera, possibly half or nearly full blooded but maybe not, he saw what was done in the cells below there’s no guarantee with Haggar. It’s clear he doesn’t trust Antok, not that he can blame the other.

 

He actually ends up following the prisoner who leads him through a training arena, past the sentry repair bay, past a series of offices and to the archive room. Antok immediately moves to the mainframe and begins downloading and sending the data he can. His erstwhile ally starts rummaging through the effects taken from the prisoners. Antok watches out of the corner of his eye as he finds what he’s looking for, curling reverently around it. Curious Antok decides to try and find his file.

 

What he finds is so much worse than he had originally thought, a child, half-Galra, taken from an unknown world. Looking at the picture in front of him of the tiny hairless alien Antok can see features of the person he’s rescued, same mane color, same basic facial features, same body type, though the child is much, much smaller. If he’s going to learn more he’s going to have to break the encryption on the data which he won’t be able to do until he returns to base and Ulaz gets a crack at it.

 

He is able to find a list of things that the child was taken with, most are small mundane objects. That is until he gets to the luxite knife. His breath hitches in his throat and he walks over to the other, leaving his download to complete. “Young one,” he says softly approaching slowly, even while attempting to keep his body language nonthreatening. “May I see what you have there?”

 

The boy curls tighter around the knife, and it is the knife he can see the soft glow of the hilt. The boy growls at him. Antok holds out his own knife, “I have one like it, see?”

 

The boy uncurls himself slowly and examines Antok’s blade, comparing it to his own. “May I ask where you got it?”

****

 

 

Kaathe is unsure how to respond, his mother left before he was really able to have memories of her. However he does remember his father’s stories, that she was kind, strong, and brave, that if it had been her choice she never would have left. “It’s my moms,” it’s whispered softly as he hands the masked man his knife back. The other nods, “would you like to come with me? She’s one of us.”

 

The words are tempting, they speak to a yearning he thought long dead to him. They also echo the witch’s promise too closely. He knows what ‘his people’ are, he’s living proof of what they’ve done. No, he cannot trust this man, no matter what he says. So instead he shakes his head, “no, home,” almost as an after thought he adds “please.”

 

He should be too proud to beg, but he just doesn’t want to be here anymore. The masked man seems disappointed but he nods and leads Kaathe to his ship. “You should take one of the supply vessels, my ship is too small. If you follow me I will bring you to the edge of your system. You must get the rest of the way on your own.” The location of the boy’s home world is one thing he was able to pull from the system.

****

 

 

Piloting, he’s not sure how he knows how to do it, he has vague memories of his father showing him when he was young. New instincts pounding in his veins thanks to the witch and his reaction time is much better. This fails to explain the rest though, how he can enter the landing sequence like it’s second nature to him. How he can control his descent. How he knows to pull up and transfer the energy of his fall into the ground, glassing the desert sand beneath his ship and leaving a small crater. How he can make the hair pin turns into the cave system to hide his ship.

****

 

 

Kaathe’s first order was to find food, he’d avoided taking in most of the food Haggar and her minions gave him once he’d noticed the changes. Still, food was something he needed, and soon, he realized he didn’t have much energy to hunt with. Luckily there was smoke on the horizon and with it wafted the smell of cooking meat.

 

It didn’t take long to find the source of the smell and the meat, there was some sort of festival going on. Kaathe waited on the outskirts for someone to carelessly throw something out. He has a small measure of bitterness aimed towards them. He’s out in the fringes starving while they are wasting food, dimly he remembers there was a time when he’d been told a half-eaten hot dog or hamburger was not something to eat himself. That time has long since passed, he grabs a couple carelessly forgotten plates. As he’s eating he notices a coyote getting a little close to the second plate he wants to claim, he offers a low growl and the canine decides to try its luck elsewhere.

 

“HOLY FUCK!” Someone yells behind him, Kaathe swiftly makes for a sheltered and most importantly pitch black outcropping of rocks. “What?” a second male voice comes up to the first, “what are you yelling about?”

  
“I just saw something, it was. It was huge and purple.”

 

The second voice starts laughing, “man you are tripping balls, I told you not to take any of the free punch.”

 

“Ha, fucking, ha, you’re a class act.”

 

“Yes, I am, glad you can see my comedic genius.”

 

Kaathe doesn’t stick around for the rest sulking off into the dark.

****

 

 

That isn’t the first close call he’s had, a couple of hikers also managed to stumble across him at one point while he was hunting out in the scrub. The two promptly screamed and ran the other direction, fuckers actually managed to forget their six year old kid in their panic.

 

Kaathe knows she’s six because she told him, this is how he also knows that her favorite color is purple (which is how she knows he’s a nice monster.) And that her best friend is named Lisa and her other best friend is Tommy, but he’s a stupid jerk because he put a frog on her head. Kaathe listens to her talk while she rides on his shoulders to the nearest ranger’s station. He doesn’t stick around after dropping her off.

****

 

 

After that monster hunters start showing up and Kaathe decides it’s time to find greener pastures. They tromp through looking for the “Garrison Ghoul” a name Kaathe already hates, and preemptively hates everyone who uses it. Which means he hates all the would-be monster hunters off the bat, their actions merely justify his already strenuous dislike of them. They make noise, try and catch glimpses of him and scare off all the game, Kaathe raids their tents while they hunt for him and steals their blankets and sleeping bags. Once he feels like he has enough he decides to make for somewhere else.

 

Hopping in his ship he follows the caves and scrub in the dead of night. Following a scent of freshwater, the sound of a trickling stream, and the feeling of a cool breeze. Or the perception of them, he still doesn’t quite have any words that really describe the sensation. It’s like he’d been born blind and is only just now experiencing color for the first time. Instead of trying to explain it, even in his own mind he decides to follow it. The energy seems to be coming from the Garrison’s property, or somewhere on the borders between it and the ranchers and desert hermits that managed to sink their family’s claws so deep into the place the Garrison just gave up any delusions of having it.

 

He doesn’t understand how he knows this information.

 

Luckily both swathes of land are pretty aggressively closed to the public, which means no god damned monster hunters. If he was really lucky, no Garrison soldiers or cadets either. The universe, in all honesty, owes him a little luck at this point.

 

The energy it turns out is coming from the bottom of a sinkhole set into a plateau, the plateau and area beneath it, riddled with sandstone caverns. Kaathe parks his vessel in a small raised side cavern half way up the ridge and scales down to the ground. The sinkhole, open to the late night into early dawn sky, is home to a small oasis, bushes, grasses and even good sized trees surround a pool of clear water that from what Kaathe can see is home to frogs and fish. The pool is fed by a small stream that emerges from a cave that has a soft blue glow coming from inside it.

 

Kaathe enters the cave and finds a sphere of energy surrounding a giant mechanical blue lion. For the first time in, what might be the first time since his father died, Kaathe feels safe. Wholly and completely safe, he collapses to the ground in front of the lion, he’s asleep as soon as his head is on the ground. Mercifully he doesn’t dream.

****

 

 

The flatlands, a part of the desert Kaathe actively avoids, because, like the name implies, it’s flat, as in no cover to hide from people, or shelter from the sun. Avoiding the flatlands would have been something Kaathe was keen to do for the rest of his life. What little of it there could be said to be, he’s not going to go back into space. He knows that much, but he can’t just keep hiding out in the middle of nowhere forever either, not when something out in the flatlands, out on the edge of what he knows is human civilization is calling to him.

 

Eventually the need to know overcomes the fear of that knowledge. He sets out at dusk, bidding goodbye to the blue lion that watches over the cave. Marching out into the wilderness Kaathe finds it, the tug in his chest is centered on a desolate shack. There’s a mound of dirt piled with stones and rocks, he’s unsure where the wave of grief that nearly drives him to his knees comes from.

  
Entering the house everything is covered in a layer of dust and sand. Much of the fabric has become shredded or crusted with mud. There’s a closet with a number of clothes, some are intact enough that Kaathe resolves to take them with him. Anything he can claim beyond the tattered rags he’s currently stuck in. There are framed pictures all over the place, most are faded into near white, bleached by the sun, with slightly discolored blobs to show there was ever a photo in them. The only one that seems even sort of spared was in the bedroom.

 

It shows a broad shouldered smiling man with dark hair and a scar over one eye. With him is a child, small, equally dark haired, but many of the facial features are obscured by damage from the sun and elements. Kaathe knows now why this place calls to him, why the cairn hurt him to see. He runs to the bathroom, the mirror caked with dust and grime is still serviceable enough for Kaathe to get the first look at his face since his kidnapping. He doesn’t hesitate to smash the offending image, terror, rage, and anguish overpowering him.

 

He goes to the back, finds cans of gas, still intact enough for his purposes, then he finds an old lighter. He knows where all these things are, remembers enough to know it. Or maybe his body and soul remember what his mind has forgotten. He takes the photo of his father, he takes the clothes, then he sets the rest ablaze.

 

Next to the cairn, as the fire begins to pick up in the shack behind him and the adrenaline of rage and fear gives way to the sinking feeling of despair; Kaathe throws back his head and howls. He throws all his emotion into the sound, a wordless noise thrown up like a curse to the stars above. The uncaring stars that stole his life from him and now coldly look down over him.

 

Hiding in the shadows of one of the few rocks and shrubs growing near the shack, around the water pump, he watches the shack burn. He watches a small group of humans put out the fire, unable to bring himself to move or care while they explore the burnt out remains of two people who died years back. Because Kaathe realizes, he’s dead, dead to humanity, dead to Earth, just a revenant walking around in a warped stolen body. He has the inkling of that being the plot of an old movie or something, that he’s become the monster from old films and books used to keep himself up at night.

 

He’s shocked out of his reverie by a bright flash, his instincts taking over he growls and causes a boy about a meter away from him to yelp and drop his phone. “Matt c’mon the bugs are awful out here,” someone calls the boy, Matt. Kaathe doesn’t stick around, his life, such as it is, is only safe as long as he remains an unknown. An urban legend lurking out in the scrub.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is going to update on Mondays as nano develops the fic, the multiple updates in a row thing are not the norm. I just wanted to get the set up out and ready to go.


	3. Cryptid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt's hunt for the illusive Garrison Ghoul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up I'm going through some shit right now, I don't think I'll be up for posting a new chapter on Monday so I'm posting tonight. I'm sorry about the lack of a consistent schedule but I should be doing the regular update starting next week.

Matt idly hums to himself while he works on the photo which hopefully caught the creature itself. Katie is in her room trying to build a not-shitty drone out of a commercial drone. A quick “do black bears have a tapetum lucidum,” reveals that yes they do. So do cougars, or he would assume so, cats do so cougars should right? He decides to add front facing samples of both for him and Katie’s new photo software to analyze. The results are… inconclusive. Because when all you have to go on is some eye shine and a vague silhouette things get difficult. Not that that’s stopped either he or Katie, according to his father the only person he’s ever met that was more stubborn than any given member of the Holt household was Joseph Kogane.

  


Kogane who disappeared and is probably dead, which is a really depressing thought that pops into his head. Matt hops onto the chat and share some of their findings with the group.

  


InvaderMatt: Suuuup?

SwollenEye: How’d it go?

InvaderMatt: Prank thwarted by intervention from real cryptid news at eleven.

CubanScotsman: No freaking way

InvaderMatt: Way

GreenSunsZenith: You’d better be done with those photos if you’re on here.

InvaderMatt: Dearest sister, you wound me! Also you’re worse than I am on that

GreenSunsZenith: I can multitask

InvaderMatt: The debacle that was mother’s day says otherwise.

GrenSunsZenith: That was an outlier and should not be counted

InvaderMatt: No way I can convince you to go away next tiem I need to plan something.

InvaderMatt: *time

GreenSunsZenith: Noooope :3

InvaderMatt: Cursed

CubanScotsman: Hexed

SwollenEye: Someone be workin darkest emojis

GreenSunsZenith: ANYWAY

GreenSunZenith: Let’s see the goods

InvaderMatt: Ask and ye shall receive oh dear friends of mine!

[7 new photos posted to group chat]

  


CubanScotsman: Bruh, is that freaking grave?

InvaderMatt: Yeap

GreenSunsZenith: It gets better, that’s in the backyard of an abandoned shack out in the middle of the desert. Specifically a chunk owned by the Galaxy Garrison~

SwollenEye: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRWbIoIR04c>

CubanScotsman: What’s with the creepy eye shine pic?

GreenSunsZenith: Matt’s convinced it’s the ghoul and has me working on a drone for it.

InvaderMatt: I refuse to call it that, also quitcher bitchin I’m the one who has to try and make not crappy trail-cams from the cheap-o things. And sneak them up, which means sneaking off base. Ugh.

GreenSunsZenith: Poor wittle ol me just has to monitor the feeds, from air conditioned comfort, with a plate of peanut butter cookies. >:3

CubanScotsman: Yep you’re a little sister, also cuuuuuursed

InvaderMatt: You’re giving me some of those cookies

GreenSunsZenith: hisss

  


Matt leans back in his chair and yells “moooom, Pidge says she’s not going to share any of the cookies you made!” From downstairs comes an exasperated “Matt I’m packing some up for you and putting them on top of the fridge, Katie don’t touch them, and both of you stop arguing with each other over chat.”

  


GreenSunsZenith: u bitch

InvaderMatt: >:3c

SwollenEye: You are all the worst, like legitimately the worst. I have no context for what just happened but this is the third emoji and they’ve been getting progressively more cursed.

InvaderMatt: ….

GreenSunsZenith: I’m not apologizing.

  


Matt decides to close the chat and work on the stupid trail cams he spent all his stipend on. Satisfied that he and his sister can still make their mods cry he moves on to more important things. Hunting down local cryptid things. Because yeah, that’s where we’re going with this. Never let it be said that Matt does not see things through to their conclusion, no matter how insane that conclusion may be. It really is a good thing that there’s a very solid line between fiction and reality, he’d get into so much trouble if there wasn’t. Which of course means his equally determined uber-goblin of a sister would jump right in after him. Holts are as loyal as they are stubborn.

****

  


Turns out sneaking off base is slightly harder than he’d given thought too because both his mom and dad are keenly aware of their son’s desire to go cryptid hunting. Blah blah blah, it’s not safe to go wandering the desert looking for trouble. “Boo,” he complains to Shiro in the library one afternoon, “it’s not even like I was planning on skipping class to do it. I would be justified if I did though.”

  


Shiro just sighs and looks over at Matt, “you are never going to leave this alone are you? I hope you know I’m not enabling you.”

  


“Not even to run to town and get me more trail cams next time you’re free? What a rude boy you are!”

  


Shiro shakes his head, “fine, but I’m not paying for them.”

  


Matt waves his hand like that’s of no concern, like he wasn’t going to try and con one or two extra cameras out of Shiro’s stipend. “Yeah of course I’ll get it to you before your leave, which was tomorrow right?”

  


“You know it is, seriously what’s with the evil super villain schemes? Do you actually believe this stuff?” Shiro’s actually sounding concerned.

  


Matt sighs “What do you mean by actually believe? What I believe is there’s a mystery, that mystery is getting under my skin and in lieu of something more interesting I’m going to do my damndest to solve it.”

  


Shiro scrubs a hand over his face, “more interesting isn’t going to translate to safer is it?”

  


“Probably not,” Matt concedes, “I’ll be careful though daaaad.” He drawls out the word dad because he knows it annoys Shiro. The face he makes only reinforces that Matt made the correct choice with his words causing his own expression to shift into a smug smile.

  


Shiro rolls his eyes, “Matt, just please, as obnoxious as you are you are still a good friend and I would appreciate not having you bake to death or get mauled by coyotes or cougars.”

  


“Or cryptids,” Matt supplies oh so helpfully and with much cheer.

  


“Or cryptids,” Shiro agrees with a tone of resigned, if fond, exasperation.

****

  


Matt has a stack of about ten or so trail cams, unfortunately, ten is not nearly enough to cover the whole of Garrison owned land, especially the desert area. If he could narrow down the area he’d need to search then there would be a possibility of success. In order to do that he’d need more information. More sightings. Shiro’s helping him make some of the last few adjustments to the cameras.

  


More sightings was difficult though, because the people who had seen the cryptid had tapered off after a while. Like it had decided to leave the area, or maybe gone back to space, but there wasn’t anything pinging the Garrison satellites like it had the night of the arrival. No it was likely it retreated, probably into the Garrison controlled lands. More and more stories had started to crop up online, with it came people trying to catch a picture or encounter of their own. Probably left due to increased foot traffic.

  


Most were stories about having their blankets and sleeping bags stolen. Only one of the stories is interesting. “You read this one?” he asks his sister leaning over to give her a view. “Apparently the kid decided to follow the ‘friendly purple monster because her parents were fraidy cats’ suffice to say the investigation didn’t really reveal anything.” Matt says chewing his pen.

  
“You think this is a real sighting, not some little kid’s fantasy?” Katie barely looks up from her own computer.

 

“Her parents said they were a half a mile out in the scrub, which means she either managed to wander back along the trail by herself or someone led her. Sure not the best lead, but it’s got the best description so far.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Black mane like a lion’s, short purple fur, yellow eyes, and large round ears.” He recites from the site he’d found.

 

“Huh, weird, but not entirely outside of the range for a child’s imagination. I guess it’s not surprising that you’d buy it though.” Then she gets the smile that indicates she’s about to be awful looking up at him “after all you still think the Gable Film is real.”

 

Matt looks genuinely hurt and offended, “I do not! That is the meanest thing you have ever said to me. Evil sister, evil, bad Pidge.”

 

“Don’t call me that.”

 

“Evil” he draws out the ‘i’ in evil. Katie for her part rolls her eyes and then goes back to her laptop. “Besides,” Matt continues, “I didn’t say I believed it, just that it was the most interesting one. Certainly the most unique one.”

 

“What even is the Gable Film?” Shiro’s voice speaks up.

 

Matt sighs and Katie snickers, “some guy in a ghillie suit pretending to be a cryptid, people are still putting the damn thing up on youtube claiming it’s a cryptid video.”

 

“Ah,” Shiro nods, still seeming dubious about the whole thing.

 

“Usually shows up with ‘dogman’ or ‘American werewolf’ stories, which are neat and all but honestly werewolves are kinda boring as far as cryptids go.” Katie muses a bit reaching down to grab a chip out of the bag next to her.

 

Shiro looks at her, “then what’s an interesting one to you?”

 

“Gotta be flatwoods monster, it’s got a neat design, hell even the most boring descriptions of the Jersey devil sounds more interesting than an occasionally bipedal canine.” She responds pointedly popping the chip into her mouth.

 

“That’s because my sister has good taste in cryptids,” Matt beams proudly like he wasn’t just feigning hurt for her being ‘awful.’

 

“Damn straight,” Pidge remarks back at them, offering the bag to Matt who grabs another handful for his own plate.

 

Shiro looks at them quizzically, “what is it with you two and this stuff?”

 

Katie shrugs scrolling through whatever it is she has in front of her, “probably the mystery of it, it’s not just cryptids. They’re the best part though. I mean yeah everyone in this house likes the idea of you know aliens and stuff.” Everyone shares a look having all proofread Sam Holt’s dissertation on alien life (edited by Colleen.)

 

“Still I’m into all the mysteries, unexplained disappearances, deaths stuff like that. Matt and I have dug into all the local stuff, spent like whole afternoons doing it.” She recites then she winces a little bit and spares a glance at Shiro, who to his credit didn’t flinch or frown or anything like that. He just looked a little distant, a little sad, and a little tired, and even then only for a moment.

 

Both she and her brother knew about the kid’s disappearance, the one Shiro had mentored when he’d taken part in the Garrison’s youth mentorship program. It was still a sore subject, just like the pilot disappearance years earlier was for their father. Shiro didn’t talk about him, ever, Matt had asked him once, and all he said was ‘he hates other people talking about him.’ Shiro still seems to believe wholeheartedly that the kid’s out there somewhere.

****

 

The two of them had already looked at the full report of course, Keith Harrison, at least that’s what he’d been listed under. His foster family’s last name. Shiro’s interview gave him a different last name. Kogane, according to the report, is the name Shiro had been given by the kid in question, apparently he’d wanted to hold onto his father’s last name. There was a certain passive aggressive series of discrepancies between the reports. The foster parents called him a ‘discipline issues case’ said he’d run away after picking a fight with his foster parents when he’d disappeared. They were certain that he was a clear runaway case. Shiro said he was too stubborn for that, said he was smart and loyal and he wouldn’t have run from home. Shiro was convinced he’d been taken. There was a lot said, or perhaps not said, between the two reports. The foster parents had him reported under their last name, Shiro had given the boy’s birth name.

 

Of course all of this had happened a year before Matt and Shiro had met, which meant that neither of them were going to press too hard. Having seen nothing but the somewhat distant aftermath of what was clearly still a devastating loss for him.

 

This wasn’t the only thing that had set off certain alarm bells to the Holt siblings. Keith’s birth surname, Kogane, the same surname as the pilot turned firefighter that had disappeared so many years before. The firefighter who’d been a good friend to their father, their dad had said that he had a son, that he’d met the kid once or twice, no such child existed in the system. No child until a ‘Keith Kogane’ entered the foster system as an unknown with only the name. Picked up by the local police wandering around a desert highway.

 

A kid who disappeared from a park four years later.

****

 

After weeks spent keeping his ear to the ground about dares and such Matt manages to create a small grouping of sightings from Garrison cadets. It’s completely frustrating to have to deal with this but it’s what’s required of him if he wants a chance at his little pet project to actually working. So he bites the bullet and does data entry.

 

Luckily for him despite the margin of error associated with second hand accounts his search does manage to put together a rough outline of what he’s looking for. A cluster of sightings at four different points roughly aligned with the four cardinal directions. Further digging reveals that there are a group of cave carvings at each site depicting a story about an ancient lion spirit.

 

The north carving set depicts a hunting scene, the odd thing being that the prey being hunted doesn’t appear to be fauna in nature. Rather most of the hunting scenes show strange almost demonic looking things. The prevailing theory seems to be that it’s a guardian spirit to humanity.

 

This seems to be backed up by the south carvings which depict the lion standing watch over a series of scenes ranging from the domestic. Home life, child birth, etcetera, to the more exciting, wars and battle, hunts, and even natural disasters. Apparently the spirit was known to appear in trying times to aid people, though it’s also heavily associated with home and the family.

 

The east carving shows a prospering group of people, archaeologists theorize that this is an entirely fantastical depiction since no large spires, or castle like structures were found in the immediate area at any point in history. To say nothing of the sky boats. (Which of course everyone on the forum has assessed to mean aliens.)

 

The west carving set shows the spirit arriving on the land not to aid humanity but fleeing some great disaster in the fantasy setting shown in the east carving. It’s almost like the carving sets were meant to be used to tell a story, though how and in what order you’d be expected to read them is something that seems to be lost to time. “I’m gonna guess east then west with north and south being the lion’s exploits on Earth.” Katie says looking over his shoulder.

 

“I think it’s more linear than that, I’m gonna say north, east, west, south.” Matt replies taking a bite of cookie.

 

“So you think it’s a coincidence?” Katie asks stealing a cookie for herself while Matt makes a noise of protest.

 

“What? You think we have an alien archaeologist on our hands?” Matt cocks an eyebrow at his sister. Though as far as theories for extraterrestrial visitors go it’s one of the less outlandish in his mind.

  
“Maybe it’s looking for something, I mean according to you the best description indicated a lion-like mane right?” Katie isn’t actually asking, her smile is entirely too mocking for that.

 

“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, too bad the six year old’s description matches the more fragmented accounts. Her’s just happens to be the one that includes details like ear shape and fur texture.” Matt folds his arms in front of him and gives the computer a hard look before sighing and grabbing another cookie being sure to keep this one far from his sister’s reach. Katie shrugs unrepentant before taking the plate of remaining cookies leaving Matt with only the one he’d grabbed.

 

“I’m having mom make grasshoppers next time,” he yells after his sister who just wrinkles her nose.

 

“I will never, ever, in a billion years understand why so many people like chocolate and mint together. It’s like someone’s attempt to make a cookie with toothpaste.”

****

 

Matt has learned that no amount of ice water is enough. Even if the lion carvings are considered an archaeological treasure. Even with the well-traveled service roads leading out to them and guided tours every other weekend. It’s too freaking much, too hot, too long, too strenuous, too everything, “I will never mock Pidge about not wanting to hang around outdoors again.” He promises to no one in particular.

 

“Ah that’s a lie, I wouldn’t be nearly as good an older sibling if I did not relentlessly mock her for her height, eating habits, posture, sleeping habits… When did mom and dad get me to do their jobs for them?” Matt scowls with the realization he’s been picking up the nagging slack. There’s a small noise echoing off the walls almost like a small chuckle.

 

He rolls his eyes, great my brain’s so baked not only am I talking to myself but now the desert is laughing at me. Sneaking away from the group long enough to plant his trail cameras at the optimal locations according to the drone he and Katie had used to scout the area was slightly more complicated than he would have liked. Still he managed to do it without getting bitched out. For the first two locations, the last one saw a snarl from the resident park ranger turned tour guide and a horror story about a naughty group of teens who were never seen again. One that Matt pointed out was patently untrue since he’d looked into literally every recorded disappearance in the scrub for the last hundred years or so.

 

Even if looked into was just “skimmed the scans kept by the DNR and missing persons.”

****

 

Examining the feeds is boring. During the day there’s a whole hell of a lot of nothing, maybe a jack rabbit or hawk if he’s lucky. _IF_ he’s lucky.

 

“Ugh, Shiro how, pray tell, do zoologists, crypto or otherwise, do this?” he whines loudly, leaning back in his chair.

  
Shiro shrugs, “how much footage do you need to go through?”

 

“Eight freaking hours,” he groans, Shiro flinches in sympathy (he’d been stuck on air traffic duty when he was still training.) “Luckily I have it on time lapse, and more importantly. Remember how Katie said she’d be ‘monitoring the feeds from air conditioned comfort?”

 

Shiro nods then frowns disapprovingly, “you didn’t?”

 

“Hey she offered, and built up a nice program that automatically saves any movement of a certain size and threshold.” He beams, he’s proud of himself for piggy backing off his sister’s work sure, but he’s also clearly proud of her. He sighs “You should see it Shiro, it’s elegant, and efficient.”

 

Shiro frowns at the live feed, “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that it’s not supposed to be doing that?”

 

Matt whips his head around to see what Shiro’s looking at, the live feed flickers is briefly filled with static, and warping of the footage “no it is not. Dammit, I hope the heat didn’t fuck it up already.”

 

It was one of the ones obnoxiously placed on a cliff face looking at one of the caves. Matt had neither the desire nor the inclination to go out and retrieve it, fix it, then hike out to put it back up.

 

After a few moments of flickering it returns to normal, his sister’s program pings it as an error that could not be cataloged. “That was bizarre,” Shiro looks over his shoulder while he tries to clean up some of the distorted image.

 

“Try adjusting the compression at the midpoint,” Matt blinks up at Shiro who raises a brow right back. “Do you really think I learned nothing on the routine data flights in orbit? Or spending the last two years with your family?”

 

Matt cracks a grins and starts to furiously type on his computer, “touché Shirogane, alright let’s see if this works.”

 

Running through seven different filters, half dozen adjustments to the feed, Shiro’s suggestions about the data itself and a couple other more gritty solutions they have a workable vaguely human shaped blob in the footage that could be salvaged. It’s not in the other feeds so it’s not a shadow and it seems to move with purpose. “Alright, that’s freaky, any ideas?”

 

Shiro shakes his head frowning, “why is someone walking around on Garrison property in the middle of the night?”

 

“More to the point I marked the nearby surroundings so I could get an idea of height, whoever or whatever that is actually pretty flip-flapping tall.” He points out.

 

“Assuming it’s not just distorted,” Shiro supplies.

 

“Ah, Shiro, the Scully to our Mulder I will make a believer out of you yet! Even if it takes an actual alien abduction to do it.” Matt smirks up at the other man who pointedly ignores him.

 

“Right, well, I have a family thing tomorrow and I can’t be up all night watching the feeds with you.”

 

About two hours after Shiro leaves a camera at a different cave entrance starts to fuck up, cursing severely Matt tries to clean up the image again, it goes slightly smoother having done it once already but results in less. Matt scowls at it, “it is on now mystery cryptid,” Matt starts working on a program based on his sister’s to ping distorted footage and a second cleanup program that goes through the footage isolated by the first.

 

He may not actually end up sleeping that night, which his mother, father, and Shiro all manage to lecture him about to the next day. “All this nagging really makes me feel loved” he sighs into the desk his head is currently on while Shiro winds down from the third iteration of this lecture. This one containing some very lovely and likely Japanese colloquialisms courtesy of Shiro’s grandmother.

 

“We nag because we care,” Shiro says pinching the bridge of his nose, because this lecture had been rehearsed, he knew Matt would get too involved in his programs.

 

Matt just responds to this with a tired thumbs up, and a weary “feelin the love buddy.”

****

 

Katie has her feet up on her desk idly flicking her drone through some dizzying maneuvers, if only piloting a real craft was as easy as this. Katie Holt is a woman with a secret. Underneath all of the science, math, computer science, and detective work- even if it is more hobby than anything- is someone born to fly. Someone with the latest and greatest flight simulator locked deep in the recesses of her computer in a folder disguised behind the thumbnail of the “came with the computer browser no one uses.”

 

The latest and greatest flight simulator that over the course of her time having it has managed to accrue over two hundred and seventy hours. The joystick she’s using to control the drone flitting around the skies of Garrison property out in the desert is well loved, having seen all nearly three hundred hours with her. If either Matt or Shiro noticed it wasn’t half as new as she’d claimed neither of them said a word thank fucking Christ.

 

Too bad there’s nothing out in the desert, her neighbors had much more interesting lives to spy on when she’d been testing it. Like two broken zoning laws and one classmate she now has some serious blackmail against. The desert though? Well there’s wildlife she supposes, which is fun to look at so long as she doesn’t actually need to be outside interacting with it. That would be better if they were in one of the more forested parts of the country, out here lizards and snakes are pretty annoyingly hard to spot from as high up as she is and that’s about all there is.

 

She frowns slightly, there’s a whole lot of nothing, and then she notices it, a patch of green on the horizon, green and blue. An oasis, well there’s no reason that a cryptid wouldn’t be lurking around an oasis. At the very least it will be something other than sandy beige and brown to look at. She starts moving the drone in that direction, dipping and maneuvering it through a couple complex aerial tricks when the image on her computer starts to warp a bit. At first it seems like a heat haze and she’s not overly concerned, then the static shows up and as she’s right over the sinkhole with the oasis the connection goes out entirely.

 

Her brother had spent like actual money on that drone, she’d spent two god damn weeks straight fixing it up and giving it actual range and altitude. It was her baby, it was her Rover, it had range on it that rivals, perhaps surpasses, Garrison tech. All of that range, all of the clarity of its images and response time was her blood, sweat, and tears. Okay her’s and Shiro’s it’s not like she’s amazing with the mechanical aspects of it she is not yet a perfect being. None of this matters though, what matters is that it’s gone, it went down in the middle of an area that goes unused and unmapped by the Garrison lost, likely forever.

 

There’s nothing calm, collected, or dignified about the wordless noise of frustration and rage she makes.

 

Matt comes charging into her room, “Katie what the hell?!”

 

“Rover is gone,” she says tone clipped and very angry.

 

“What?” Matt blinks.

 

“Rover. Is. Gone.” She repeats slowly emphasizing each word.

 

“How?” Matt sounds as perplexed as she was when it happened, before the anger and realization had replaced confusion.

 

“There was interference when I found a possible site to scout, then the connection dropped entirely,” she is seething and Matt approaches slowly and calmly. He’s using soothing words that mean absolutely nothing and serve only as a way to calm and ground his sister. With a note of distant pride she observes he’s treating her like a dangerous predator or possibly enraged gunman. Given she’s in fact a four foot nine inch unarmed string bean; this says a lot the kind of murderous expression she’s probably wearing.

 

“What kind of interference was it? May I see?” She nods and he brings up the last few moments the drone has before going down.

 

“Hmm, the trail cams got hit buy something similar two nights ago but that had been temporary. Interesting.” He says while running a cleanup program over the last moments of usable footage. Katie would have to admit she’s actually slightly impressed. The program doesn’t have quite the elegant flare of one of hers but the aggressive utility of it has its own weird charm.

 

“I swear, if this is some sort of weird alien meteor or tech or something messing with my baby I’m going to kill the Ghoul. Then I’ll bring it back so I can make it build me a new Rover and kill it again.” She scowls deeply at the feed.

 

“You were attached to that thing huh?”

 

“Two weeks Matt, I spent two weeks on Rover, I will have my revenge for this. I will be as patient as I need to be, but I will have my revenge.”

 

The program warbles to show it’s finished and what they see isn’t quite as interesting as an alien but about halfway up the side of the sinkhole is a small alcove, a shaded cavern. Difficult to see against the waning light of the desert sunset is what looks like a purple glow coming from inside it. “What on earth is that?”

 

“Reflection?” Katie squints at her monitor.

 

“No, the sun’s over the ridge, it’s why it’s so hard to make out, external source of some kind?” Matt says pointing to the background.

 

“Maybe the hole goes all the way through and that’s the sunset on the other side?” It’s an unlikely explanation even to her ears.

 

“Could be but it looks way too shallow for that.”

 

“True, crashed alien ship then?” She grins.

 

“Could be,” Matt smiles down at her.

****

 

Late one evening Matt’s sitting alone at his computer going over, mostly homework but half an eye is still being kept on his trail cameras. Rubbing at his temples Matt decides to finish his assignment by hard coding it, the caffeine wearing off and the stress of trying to figure out the crash in his latest programming assignment is finally getting to him. Sometimes the brute force tedious but simple solution works the best.

 

He’d tried to get out to the plateau where the drone crashed but not only was he not prepared to try and navigate the caves or the sheer rock face leading into it but apparently the whole damn plateau is some sort of heritage site so trying to do either is technically illegal. Matt gets up to try and make another cup of tea, herbal this time so he doesn’t have to endure another lecture about staying up all night.

 

Waiting for his brew to steep he nearly falls asleep on his feet the sound of rain and thunder outside managing to soothe him more than the tedious programming work he’s required to do for class. When he gets back he notices his one of his feeds is distorted by interference. Adrenaline spiking and washing the drowsiness from the rain away he runs over to his computer to start up his image software in real time. The image returns before he can put it to use however and it reveals an entirely new image. A rock face, the camera was taken from its perch and put down facing one of the cliffs.

 

“God dammit,” Matt takes a closer look and realizes based on the steadily rising water, that the camera’s been placed on the ground. “Oh you have got to be kidding me.” Then another one goes down. Matt curses with enough color to make a sailor blush because there’s nothing quite like the creativity of a frustrated teenage programmer when it comes to swearing. Matt manages to clean up the image enough on the last trail-cam to go down to see the ground moving and that’s about it, in fact the movement seems to include the type of elastic bouncing of a bungee cord. Which is a first person view that should qualify as some sort of war crime to be subjected to. If the wave of nausea overcoming him is anything to go by.

****

 

Matt isn’t able to get out to the site of the camera movement until around noon the next day and by then the ground has managed to harden around all three cameras rendering all but the fancy one in the water tight case inoperable. And all of them still need to be excavated with a small garden shovel, he gets the sense that something is watching him dig up all three cameras.

 

“It is on,” he shouts to the world at large, maybe what’s watching him is a coyote or bobcat, or maybe it’s his cryptid, or maybe it’s the total jackass that decided moving his camera in the first place was funny. Whoever it is they are going to listen to his shouty monologue, “I hope you know this is war! I will be back, I will be back and I will replace these, I will build an army of drones and I will tear the whole plateau apart!”

 

Floating softly out of the desert is something that almost sounds like an amused chuckle which only motivates Matt all the more. The declaration has been made, the first shots have been fired, time to mobilize the troops.

****

 

“You can’t abandon me now!” Matt cries.

 

Shiro looks at the younger man clinging to him “I already told you this was a bad idea. I also told you I’m not buying you any of those cameras. Getting the ones I did was encouraging your bad behavior enough.”

 

“I bought those you were just the errand boy. C’mon Shiro, some asshole moved them. And it wasn’t any of the staff, it had to be cadets trying to fuck with me. If you don’t help me they win.”

 

“Maybe it was your cryptid,” Shiro teases, “besides, your clever you’ll think of something, preferably something that doesn’t impact my wallet.”

 

“Jerk,” Matt pouts, “you don’t even believe in my cryptid and yet you wound me by suggesting my trail-cams made first contact.”

 

“Technically if it’s real a six year old from Austin made first contact.”

 

“Shit you’re right. How Spielberg.”

****

Matt gets home to see that another of the camera networks got moved. Even with his software all he’s treated to is more of that awful bungee chord view. “Seriously, that’s just mean, hold it in front of you if you don’t want to be seen don’t swing it around like that.”

 

So it goes for another couple of weeks, Matt buys cameras to replace the two dead ones and a couple extras to fill any security gaps, trying to estimate the range he’d need on whatever causes the interference to get it between two cameras. He replaces the positioning of the moved ones each time. Once he caught a blurry still of, a vague blur, like the blob on his first camera’s attempt to catch the interference source. Like it’s teasing him.

 

The last straw is coming home to the camera feed showing him a stellar swinging view of a deep ravine. “Fuck you, even if you are my cryptid,” he’s still ninety percent sure it’s a cadet or three, “That’s just mean.”

****

 

This is the third time, the third god damn weekend in a row he’s had to stalk out to the middle of the god damn desert to fix his god damn trail cameras. Most people would probably give up by now, but unless his family history projects are significantly more off base than he thought, most people aren’t Holts. Holts are stubborn and Holts are clever. So of course this means he’s just going to keep putting the cameras back up. And buy more cameras, and better zip ties and hide them better. And gorilla glue them to the cliffs. He looks at the trail camera hanging by it’s zip tie to the branch of a shrub dangling over a chasm.

 

That’s when he feels eyes on the back of his head again, whirling around he’s done being creeped out by this. “You hear that! Gorilla glue!” He yells to the bastard. “I AM A MOTHERFUCKING HOLT! I’m not gonna be beaten like this you absolute jackass.” The desert gives hims a resounding silence, not even the small snickers he could swear he heard the last couple times. Then satisfied he’s made his point he squares his shoulders and decides to retrieve his camera. Because there is no way he’s letting fifty bucks and all the time spent making it a not crap piece of equipment fall into a ravine, not after what has come to be referred to as the “Rover Incident.”

 

He can hear what sounds like scrabbling on the rocks behind him, and a hoarse shout for him to wait, but it doesn’t matter he’s already half way out on the ledge reaching at the branch. “I said wait!” Someone shouts, Matt just throws up his middle finger in their direction not bothering to give them any more attention than that.

 

Matt realizes that trying to retrieve the trail cam moved out on a branch hanging precariously over a cliff was probably not his smartest move. This realization unfortunately comes from the ground beneath his feet giving way and him floating in open air, it feels like a cartoon moment. When he doesn’t follow the trail camera plummeting into the abyss he distantly realizes this is because a strong and large arm is hooked around his chest. A strong, large, purple furred arm, looking up he sees a mess of black hair or maybe a mane falling over solid yellow eyes. “Oh,” is all he can say as he’s swung bodily onto firm ground.


	4. Demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does the local cryptid feel about the gawky teenager stomping around his lair on some mad quest? Well prepare thy selves for internal monologuing!

Kaathe’s new routine is trying to set up something that isn’t the ground in front of the lion. He feels safe near the lion sure but it’s not an easy safety between the exposure and the blue light emitted by her barrier and the unnamable tension. A tension he has difficulty thinking about, even admitting its existence to himself was difficult on account of it clashing with the safety the lion radiates. Something about his time spent in the witch’s care makes him uneasy around the lion.

  


After burning down his old home he set up a nest in one of the alcoves, small pouches taken from the camps of humans hold small things like his photo, or some rations for him to carry with him on longer forays into the desert. He wears them like a bandolier across his chest, at his waist is a belt with his mother’s knife sheathed on it. He’s learned to hunt, he does not hunt within the oasis; something about shedding blood there feels wrong to him. Instead he hunts out in the deserts. Jack rabbits, lizards, whatever else he can capture and kill. The first couple nights he’d been hungry enough to eat them raw and bloody. After taking the lighter however he’s begun cooking for himself. Roasting the meat over a flame, it doesn’t taste very good but it’s better than nothing.

  


The small cave he’s in is starting to feel like his own. Not a home, maybe never a home, but it’s something, something that’s his. He chuckles to himself, he has two things now, a ship he stole from Haggar, and a number of sleeping bags he stole from monster hunters. It feels weirdly fitting, everything he had was stolen, and now everything he has is stolen, stolen shelter, stolen ship, stolen photo. “I guess I shouldn’t be so keen on just taking things. Not like I can just go grocery shopping though looking like this.”

  


Kaathe makes his way over to his drop ship examining the galran interface. Unsure as to whether or not it was part of his lessons, or simply something instilled into him by Haggar, the operation of galran devices and the nuances of the language is something he has. The ship is capable of limited hyperdrive jumps, and sub-light travel in excess of any human craft. Most importantly, it has a long range communication device. The outbound comm system being the first thing he disabled after confirming there were no trackers. The device is still more than capable of picking up radio chatter from vessels out in the universe. So far the noise of the empire consists of harsh commands to scouting ships, requests for supplies, and the planning of flight paths. Once there was a heart breaking plea for help from a group the empire was in the middle of eradicating, beacons of distress that went unheard by anyone able to help.

  


Kaathe spends the rest of that evening huddled in the back corner of his cave, the screams and pleas haunting his sleep for weeks afterwards. Shaking the memory from himself he decides to begin foraging, taking his knife and following his well-worn path out of the cave.

****

Kaathe spends an average of between an hour and two tracking prey, then another fifteen to thirty minutes stalking or waiting for his prey. The lighter is running out of fuel and he’d rather not go back to tearing into prey with his claws and fangs. He’s managed to steal back that much of his humanity, the thought of giving it up again sickens him, though that might just be the thought of eating raw still bloody meat.

  


So when the Garrison cadets start sneaking out to the scrub to drink or get high it’s not hard for him to raid their rovers for the fire starters in their emergency kits. Unfortunately this leads to two cadets seeing him on one occasion and a following few months of other cadets coming out on a dare to get a peek at the ghoul. At first the cadets were minor annoyances easy to avoid and rarely did they impact anything to do with him. Quickly they started becoming a nuisance, scaring them was easy enough, usually threatening an avalanche or chasing and antagonizing a cougar until it crossed their paths was enough to make them run.

  
Though Kaathe makes note that antagonizing cougars is probably a poor habit to get into as general rule while he’s cleaning out a shallow wound dealt by the claws of the animal in question. Still it solves his problem decently. Now the valleys have enough of a reputation that all he needs to do is roar anywhere with an echo to drive away most unwelcome visitors. Which in Kaathe’s world is all visitors.

  


Otherwise he spends his time in those caves with carvings of Blue, they have the same general feel as the lion but not as strong, it leaves him wondering how the people who made them managed it. Another thing he spends his time on is trying to decipher them. Doing so on his own is difficult but he makes a small game of it, trying to come up with an order and make a story out of it. Seeing if he can get a response out of her by reciting them at her particle barrier. It also gives him a chance to use his voice. Dryly he notes that he’s spent more time talking to Blue than he ever spent talking to anyone as a human, at least what little of that time he can remember, which in fairness is not much at all. It’s better than the alternative of losing his voice entirely and being trapped in his own mind as the last bastion of humanity left to him.

****

  


The day Kaathe spots the first drone is a sunny one. Surprisingly cool, though his body is adapted to the harsh environment so any assessment of temperature he makes should be taken with a mine’s worth of salt. Not that he really has anyone other than Blue to comment about the weather to. Kaathe never understood idle chit chat about the weather, that’s one of those things that people do that has always baffled him. Even with his intention to use his voice at least once a day he’s proud to never fall that far. He has learned he doesn’t need much water to survive, he still carries a water canteen with him; “fortune favors the prepared.” It’s something he remembers his dad saying, a part of him recognizes it as a quote but nothing else about the saying triggers more memories. The end result is water canteens and rations, along with a pilfered first aid kit, and anti-venom in case of snake bites carried either in the pouches across his chest or a pilfered backpack. Though he suspects that between the fur and his thick hide a snake’s fangs would be hard pressed to do him any real harm. Still not something he’s interested in testing.

  


Kaathe is left wondering idly if Haggar designed him to be a desert soldier or if his body would adapt to an equally harsh environment. If he were to try and go towards the mountains he distantly remembers camping in once years ago with someone whose face is now a blur. Would he need a coat or would his body start making a winter overcoat? Would he need more calories to produce the excess heat? The thought of breaking into a gas station briefly amuses him. That is until he hears the sound. A small whirring buzz off in the distance.

  


Anticipating a Garrison vehicle of some sort Kaathe hides behind an outcropping of rocks and scans the horizon for whatever is making the noise. His diligence is rewarded by a dot on the horizon, too small to be a full sized plane. It’s a bit of technology, Kaathe doesn’t know what it is. He still decides he doesn’t want to come out of hiding thank you very much. The small device circles the area a couple times before flying off to another section of the desert.

  


It shows up about four more times after that, one of those times being when he’s stalking a tour group to steal some fuel for the lighter or another fire starter. That’s when he overhears the tour group chattering about the device, “I keep seeing that drone it doesn’t look like any of the on the market models. Think the Garrison is testing out a new reconnaissance or survey model?”

  


Drone is something he remembers from his time in Haggars prison, the small automated robots used for menial tasks. From the context of “reconnaissance and survey” he is pleased that staying hidden was indeed the right choice. Hard to tell if knowledge of earth drones is something he’s forgotten about or something he never knew. Based on what he’s been overhearing from the tour groups Kaathe’s starting to realize he was a pretty sheltered human. He realized back in space his father had to have known his mother wasn’t human, was that why all his memories of his old home are of him and his father alone? What had motivated him to take a non-human lover? To spend the time it took to raise a child? What was she like?

  


Was she a monster?

****

  


Kaathe has decided to watch the group of tourists, there’s no drones today so it’s probably safe to follow them and listen to the snippets of conversation. Listening to them talk about their lives. Listen to the stories the well-read among them think the pictographs tell. He’s not overly sure why he tortures himself like this. They aren’t his people, they never really were his people. Hell the galra weren’t the only ones that tortured him, most of his memories of his peers beyond his father are not pleasant. Torture’s an exaggeration but nothing about life among either race has made Kaathe inclined towards generosity regarding them. Even so, living out on the periphery of any sapient people is difficult. Life among humans, it’s not something he really took part in. Something he never really learned how to take part in. Yet? Yet here he is trapped, addicted to the life he never really wanted only craving it now that he can’t have it.

  


“I wonder if that’s my human half or my galra half?” he wonders aloud, it’s not like the galra tend react any differently. In fact being told they couldn’t have something they otherwise wouldn’t want was a surefire way to make them try and take it. At least that’s what Kaathe’s admittedly limited experience said. Letting out a bitter laugh he considers that based on himself and his observations, what he’s seen of the galra is a race made of stubborn spite. Which is exactly what’s motivating him to spy on people that would cage him, then poke and prod him, then do any number of other dreadful things to try and get a reaction out of him. To find out what made an alien tick, if they knew he was half-human would that change anything? Probably not. He remembers the long rants of classmates and random people about things like faith, religion, and ideology being the cause of suffering. Ignoring all that’s been done by humans to each other to sate simple curiosity.

  


Probably a truism for every sapient species in the universe. Haggar wasn’t human and he’d smelled and heard enough of what was going on outside his cell to know that she did monstrous things in the name of curiosity. Haggar, she didn’t feel or smell quite right, not like the other galra. Not just something, but everything about her was different. Kaathe shuts his eyes and tries to push the memories of the witch away from himself.

  


He’s too distracted to notice that one of the humans left their group until he hears scrabbling on the ledge beneath him. Slinking into a shaded crevice his ears swivel to a small curse and a hushed, voice “I will never mock Pidge about not wanting to hang around outdoors again.” Peeking over the ledge to see about a meter below him is a human. Around his own age, or what he’d guess is his age, hard to tell now that he’s almost over six feet tall and had his brain scrambled. He can still remember his birthday just not how old he is. The human is in a sleeveless shirt with a water bottle at his side. He has messy light brown hair and large glasses framing his eyes.

  


Kaathe might have been worried about being spotted but the human is so fixated on what he’s doing that it doesn’t seem to matter. He’s mumbling to himself while he works. “Ah that’s a lie, I wouldn’t be nearly as good an older sibling if I did not relentlessly mock her for her height, eating habits, posture, sleeping habits… When did mom and dad get me to do their jobs for them?” He puts his hands on his hips examining his work and frowning at his own realization. Kaathe was tempted to ask who ‘Pidge’ was, he doesn’t for his curiosity couldn’t outweigh his caution. He could assume she’s this human’s sister. Not something he remembers experiencing himself but he is familiar with the concept. In the abstract at least.

  


The boy slides down the cliff face carefully, though with the flare for the dramatic indicative of all teens. He decides to follow the small human, he’s glad he did when he realizes that the human is putting up small cameras, or what he assumes are cameras. They look like cameras. Kaathe growls low in the back of his throat and he can feel his ears flatten.

****

  


Pacing in front of the blue lion Kaathe is trying to decide what to do about the cameras, he followed the human to all the carvings and watched him put up his cameras. Now there are cameras surveying almost the entire area around the cave entrances to the valleys housing the carvings. At a loss for what to do Kaathe found himself ranting to the lion about the small human and his frustrations towards this situation. “Why?” he screams one last time resting his head against her particle barrier. His voice hoarse from his anger, “why can’t they just leave me alone?”

  


Seething with resentment he leans against the barrier and sighs, when he was human, when he was normal, nobody cared who he was. “I’m not some fucking curiosity,” he examines his claws with a sense of detachment. “I mean okay, sure, I’m a freak pretty clear cut, but I don’t like being gawked at. Never have. I don’t care if I can’t remember most of my time as a pink hairless fucking ape, I’m one hundred percent certain that I have never liked being stared at.” The lion offers almost a small purr in response.

  


“Are you actually trying to comfort me or am I just going insane?” Silence is the only reply he receives. “Right stupid question. I’m ranting at a giant alien robot lion while talking myself through a panic attack brought on by a human with a few cameras. Sanity left the building with my pupils.” Groaning he digs around in the ship for anything that might work. What he finds is a device registered as part of a standard infiltration pack. An EMF emitter, one that hopefully will be enough to knock out the cameras.

  


“Well either I actually get to hunting unmolested or I’m going to be an internet sensation overnight whoopee.” He drawls sarcasm dripping from every word, turning back to the lion he smiles, “sorry Blue but if I do end up in some weird tabloid I’m not going to be able to stick around here. Clipping the EMF device to his belt next to his knife he makes his way out of the cave and into the cool night air on his latest hunt.

****

  


The high whirring sound that wakes Kaathe the next day makes him groan in unhappiness. Recognizing that sound as one of those infuriating drones he rolls out of his nest and to his cache of tools. Activating the device he used to knock out the cameras he stays in the shadows of the cliff face getting as close to the drone as possible. He can see it more clearly, it has a streamlined design supported by four rotors it wavers as he gets closer before finally dropping into the sinkhole below. A number of agitated birds take off from the area in which it fell giving out loud shrill cries of distress at being disturbed.

  


Kaathe makes his way down the cliff face to where the drone fell. The journey is precarious even with his new claws, tail, and reflexes. The drone having landed on a small ledge overhanging a sheer drop onto the floor of the sinkhole below. The overhang seems to have broken at an almost perfectly ninety degree angle, causing Kaathe to idly wonder what kind of stone it is that broke so neatly. Or if the stone was cut by something. The drone itself is in decent condition all things considered, having more or less spiraled down only a few of its rotors seem to have broken, and the camera lens on it is also cracked. Deciding to be safe Kaathe rips the camera out and then the wires leading to the battery. Then he takes the rest of the machine back to his cave to fiddle with its innards.

  


Unsure of what compunction is driving his need to figure out how it works him settles in for the long haul, on it is a sticker with the words written on it “Holt Property.” Smirking he lets out a chuckle and peels off the sticker, “not anymore.” The device isn’t overly complex, the power coming mostly from a rechargeable battery. It’s an ugly thing with clear modifications that were made to what’s probably a toy, they clash wholly with the overall design but are the work of someone who knows what they were doing. The recording device, attached to an antenna, likely to send data back to a terminal with better memory storage also has a black box, one sturdy enough to have survived the impact with the ground.

  


This isn’t the work of a formal institution, even someone as mixed up as him. Kaathe can’t help but feel intrigued by whoever built the small machine, to wonder what they’re like, a twinge of regret nagging at him for having destroyed what was so clearly a labor of both devotion and skill. Still he can’t afford to let his fascination get the better of his self-preservation.

  


Slowly while he takes apart the device, setting the parts aside in neat little piles and placing the black box in an alcove of his cave he lets his mind wander. The machine is probably the property of the boy he saw hanging cameras in the canyon. “Holt huh?” he hums to himself, the picture of the boy working long into the night on this kind of machine is easy to imagine. His round glasses reflecting the light of a work lamp in an otherwise dark room. Floppy brown hair ether tied back or pushed up and out of his eyes every few minutes. It’s an endearing sight, and one that cements the threat someone as resourceful and determined as this “Holt” presents. “What to do with you?”

****

  


Kaathe frowns up at the camera having returned from his hunt early that morning, a desert pheasant slung over his shoulder. He realizes he really should do something about those cameras. There’s a good chance that someone willing to set them up and modify a drone to hunt for him. And it is clear by now that the infamous monster of the desert is what the Holt’s after, he’s come back to check his cameras mumbling to himself about blurry Bigfoot photos. Kaathe’s large ears aren’t just for show, also the kid’s about as subtle as any sixteen year old.

  
So yeah, monster hunter, one admittedly slightly more charming and fun to watch. Not to mention better prepared and with both more patience and determination than the ones Kaathe had made a habit of fucking with before he’d come out here. Still Kaathe adamantly refused to entertain the idea that this small human was anything but trouble. And that those cameras need to do anything but go. Wondering about this as Kaathe finishes preparing the pheasant over a flame he watches the sky above darken with heavy clouds. They move in from the west, where from the top of the plateau he can make out the hazy outline of mountains.

  


He leans back letting the bird roast over the open flame and tries to let his mind drift. Something he’s become good at, the memories he’d been left with are easier to dredge up when he didn’t try to find them. Letting the things bubble to the surface triggered by whatever senses he is currently experiencing. Looking back towards the mountains he vaguely remembers going to them as a young child, the image of the man he now knows as his father in his mind. The smell of caramelizing sugar and the feeling of biting down into something pleasantly warm and sticky. This is followed by the memory of cooking lizard and the first time he’d cooked his catch once returning to Earth. Frowning he tries to push the memory back and let the ones from his life as a human resurface. All this succeeds in doing is blur the two together, his father’s image warping with that of the druid who taught him while he was a prisoner. The surge of anxiety that jolts through him ruining the relaxed mood he’d been striving for and forcing him back to reality. Pulling the pheasant from the fire he bites down and chews mechanically, willing himself to eat despite his appetite having entirely vanished.

  


After his dinner the sky decides to open up, thunder crashing down and echoing through the canyon, the water flows around the lion. Becoming entirely clear as it does so, any silt or detritus being purged from it when it touches her barrier. Kaathe makes a note of it as he moves his bedding to a higher alcove of his cave. Once he’s certain his sleeping area won’t flood he grabs the EMF device and makes for the exit of the cave and starts pulling the cameras from their perches, avoiding letting them face him he loops this tail through the plastic ties attached to them. Letting them bounce and sway as he walks each one to a different mud puddle and firmly planting it in them. Smiling at his work and knowing that each one will be firmly encased once the mud dries assuming it isn’t simply washed away he returns home.

  


He also adamantly refuses to regret that particular life choice, even when he’s curled around a fire trying to get his fur to dry enough to sleep. Or at least not feel gross and cold.

****

  


Kaathe is out hunting the next day when he hears the irritated mumbling, making his way over a ridge he observes the small human angrily chipping one of the trail cameras out of its mud tomb. He smiles down at him while watching him angrily shuffling around the camera while he digs it out. Chuckling he can feel his tail twitch in amusement. As though being able to hear him Holt stands up straight and scans around the canyon causing Kaathe to shrink into the shadows of his hiding spot even further, risking the brambles around him getting caught in his fur. Most humans decide to make their escape at this point. But this human proves that being sensible is just not his forte when he yells “it is on!”

  


Then he turns around and continues yelling, rotating and shouting at whoever might be out here, “I hope you know this is war! I will be back, I will be back and I will replace these, I will build an army of drones and I will tear the whole plateau apart!” He looks like some sort of agitated bird the way he will stop just to yell something and Kaathe has to slap his hands over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. He’s not entirely successful. Maybe he should be worried about the threat of more cameras but really this just sounds like a challenge. A challenge Kaathe is more than happy to accept.

  


He follows Holt as the boy makes his way through the desert hunting each of his stolen cameras and swearing profusely at each one he has to dig out. Kaathe might feel a little bad as he watches Holt scramble over rocks and gullies and ditches to find each of his wayward technology. Early on he’d take the occasional opportunity to curse out his unseen stalker, but after a while he’d stiffly decided to work in silence broken by the occasional grumbling. Kaathe couldn’t help but feel like he’s being pointedly ignored.

  


Returning home that evening Kaathe works at brushing the brambles out of is fur deciding that the amusement of watching the small human insist on tracking down all of his stolen equipment was worth the pain of having to dig burrs out of his fur. Well, mostly worth it, he notes when he realizes a cluster of them caused a snarl to build up in his mane. The human had been a break in the monotony of his day to day life and he found himself smiling broadly as he thought of the irritable young monster hunter being led around by the nose. Yelping when he manages to yank just a bit too hard on the burrs because he was distracted he applies some of the words he’d picked up from his newfound source of entertainment. Resolving then and there that if this kid wanted to start this game then Kaathe was more than willing to play. Because as the boy had said, it is on.

****

  


His tail flicks back and forth in excitement when he’d spotted the tour group coming in from the nearby town. The last four had been a horrible disappointment, none of them having the person he wanted to see among their number. What he did see was the normal assortment of students and teachers and other lackluster individuals. Finally one group does manage to be entertaining, a group of Garrison cadets climbing out with two rail thin dark haired cadets bickering nonstop while their respective friend groups. Or group in the case of the one with the clearly smug and superior drawl to his voice, and friend, singular, in the case of the dark skinned boy who seemed intent on making up for having less clever responses with sheer volume. Idly he watches the two go back and forth and wonders why the loud one’s friend doesn’t just drag the smaller boy away, he’s clearly bigger, and probably stronger than the noisy kid and he also clearly doesn’t want the fight to continue. But his body language screams timidity and he spends most of his time wringing his hands.

  


“Knock it off you two!” This is barked by a tall man with black hair, something about him rubs Kaathe the wrong way. Like the memory of a burn some phantom pain that persists long after the memory of what caused it has faded into oblivion. The second man isn’t as tall, or doesn’t seem as tall but with his slighter frame he could just seem smaller than the first man -it’s so hard to tell with humans like ninety percent of them are shorter than him- he has darker skin and glasses though his are square and don’t have quite the same awkward image of Holt’s. He allows his companion to lecture the two squabbling boys, while he scans the horizon, his gaze seems to linger on the area Kaathe is hiding in. He taps his companion and Kaathe backs into the opening of the cave in which he has chosen to hide. His companion looks up and the two talk for a while in hushed tones until the sound of a car horn draws everyone’s attention.

  
The second car that arrives has the hallmarks of a personal car instead of one of the uniform Garrison vehicles that roll through the desert like squat beetles. This car being a dark blue van with doors that open on rails, the kind seen transporting hordes of children to and from soccer or hockey games. Kaathe’s not overly sure how he knows that’s what kind of car this is but he does, like he knows fire is hot, and water is wet. Probably yet another thing he’s forgotten he bitterly realizes. The driver’s side door opens to reveal a tall and thin but not frail looking older man with glasses and a kind if weathered face. He greets the two adults in the group and walks over, the passenger door opens to reveal the person he’d been awaiting. The group of cadets gives a group “good morning professor Holt,” to the older man who starts some sort of lecture on the ecology of the desert, things that Kaathe listens to idly while he observes the younger Holt. The lecture isn’t too interesting consisting of things he already knows from practical experience. It’s when he sees the younger Holt trying to sneak off that the older man says something interesting. “Don’t wander off Matt.” Causing the small human, Matt, to freeze and scowl at what Kaathe presumes is his father, which is confirmed by the drawn out “yes dad,” that’s returned to him.

  


Following them proves to be entertaining, the two loud cadets have decided to stay away from each other rather than risk the further ire of their commanders. The two commanding officers are, he’s learned, “Shiro” the tallest who’s face still bugs him for some reason, “Adam,” the younger man with glasses, and “Samuel,” who is Matt’s father. He’s also learned that Adam and Shiro are discussing moving into the same quarters now that a larger apartment near the base has opened up. So far so basic, leading Kaathe to wonder why he’s invested in listening to the inane chatter of these particular humans. He’s in the middle of questioning whether to bother continuing when Matt is given permission to go off on with Shiro to place his cameras.

  


Kaathe is not above being honest with himself. He enjoys watching the small human get even more annoyed. He’s decided to fuck with the kid a bit when he’d come out with, as he’d promised, more cameras. Stalking him through the canyons he observes the human, and makes note of each camera, and its placement. He can hear the two humans chatting, they’re clearly friends from the sound of it, and the way that Shiro helps Matt place cameras despite making clear he doesn’t think Matt will catch anything more interesting than a coyote. Matt surprisingly seems to agree, thought he also hopes to catch whoever messed with his original placement. He also says this is a manner of principle and that he hopes whoever was out messing with his cameras got soaked to the bone. Kaathe shudders at the memory of wet fur.

****

  


The new placement is impressive, he can’t leave any of the caves without being spotted with the previous set up. The new set up has a camera out of range of the EMF device, keeping Kaathe confined to his caves. Or they would if he didn’t have claws and the reflexes to climb, scaling the side of the sinkhole he manages to make it to the top of the inner ridge where the higher caves out are located. The placement is good, not good enough once he’s close enough after circling around he cuts the cables on the first camera holding it to the tree it’s secured to and then loops it over his tail before moving it to a remote corner to face the canyon wall. He does this with each of them and then returns to his cave, part of him wishes he could see the reaction on Matt’s face when he finds them himself. Wondering if he’s watching the feeds now or if the change in position will be an unpleasant surprise when he arrives to wherever he’s hold up the monitors watching them.

  


It’s later that week when he’s given the satisfaction of any sort of reaction, said reaction being Matt angrily climbing out of a vehicle and climbing over the ridges and bluffs to retrieve his stolen property. It is almost impressive the way he’s managing to handle loose terrain as well as he is, no trouble for Kaathe with his physical enhancements, but it is only stubborn human determination and spite motivating this guy to keep trying to scale a the inhospitable rock faces. Each time he slips he picks himself right back up and starts climbing again. Kaathe gets a laugh out of some of the more interesting combinations coming out of the guys mouth.

  


Matt seems to actually know he’s out there because the insults become pointed and direct, Kaathe freezes the first time he shouts in his actual direction. “I know you’re out there fuck nugget! I know you’re following me and I know you’re trying to piss me off. Well guess what, I’m not going to give up and when I find you I am making you pay me back for all those busted cameras you hear me?” This is the moment Kaathe realizes the small human isn’t as oblivious as he thought, that no matter how entertaining messing with him might be he’s just courting disaster by continuing it. So he decides to send a message by leaving the last camera dangling over a cliff.

****

  


Kaathe is eager to see the small human take the hint and stay the fuck out of his territory. Honestly they’ve been dancing around this stupid game for weeks, and while it was fun to watch at first, hell it was the closest thing he’s had to real interaction with someone that wasn’t a lizard, rattlesnake, or a mechanical lion in however long it’s been since he escaped Haggar. But the human was putting both of them in danger with this and their game isn’t worth either of their safety. And no matter how much Kaathe might find him charming, something he adamantly refuses to admit to, no the human is not charming with his gall, his determination, or his ingenuity. He’s just an aggravation that’s going to get both of them into trouble. Not endearing in any way nope.

  


He still decides to watch this play out, it feels appropriate, like walking a friend to the door. A piece of etiquette he remembers hearing about but can’t shake the feeling he never actually practiced. Well, nice thing about space amnesia he can pretend like he was polite and mild mannered, who knows? He certainly doesn’t, hell, he doesn’t even know who would. So it doesn’t actually matter to him. The human is fuming, “you hear that! Gorilla glue!” what even is gorilla glue? Another thing that Kaathe doesn’t know if he ever knew, an ever growing list of things to ask absolutely no one. “I AM A MOTHERFUCKING HOLT! I’m not gonna be beaten like this you absolute jackass.” He rolls his eyes, because what does the human’s family name have to do with anything?

  
_Just take the hint and leave dumbass._ He thinks bitterly hoping they can both just be done and move on with their lives. Then the human starts moving towards the cliff like he’s trying to retrieve the camera. Like a total moron.

  


Kaathe watches in horror as the human actually tries to retrieve the camera, he hadn’t considered the human would be _that_ stubborn. Someone shouts “wait,” he distantly realizes it’s him which he should probably kick himself for. He’ll worry about that when there isn’t someone about to plummet to their death because of him. The ground beneath Matt’s feet is already starting to give way. “I said wait!” he shouts again and only receives a rude gesture in response. He doesn’t think only moves and hooks on arm around the boy while he holds a nearby ledge with his other. He swings both himself and his charge onto terra firma, then his brain catches up to his actions and he hears the zoned out “oh” from the human it comes flying home exactly what he just did. “Shit,” he responds eloquently.


	5. Cryptozoologist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt Voice: Look what you did Haggar, you were allowed near this boy and now he has anxiety.  
> Kaathe Voice: I already had anxiety.  
> Matt Voice: Worse anxiety.

Matt falls to the ground with an ‘oof’ and is just about to tell off the person who is probably the guy who put his camera out on a limb when he realizes that the person in question isn’t so much a person. Okay that’s not fair they ‘he?’ is probably a person but not a human type person. Not at over six feet, not with the purple fur covering their body. Not with the huge ears that swivel in his direction when he says a breathless “oh” instead of the much more colorful string of dialogue he had been planning on.

 

The ears that had been trained on him drop, the ghoul because that’s definitely who this is tenses up their fur bristling. The alien says one word, “shit” and then turns and bolts into the valley climbing up the sandstone wall in a series of quick jumps and one less than dignified scrabble into one of the caves and they’re gone. Leaving Matt sitting on his butt in the middle of the desert.

 

Matt bites his lower lip, he just got visual confirmation of an alien, a crass alien, he was just rescued by a crass alien. A crass alien that could have mauled him, if those claws were anything to go by, or let him fall, or any in a long list of things that could have happened to him. But they didn’t, they rescued him and then cursed and clearly panicked, and ran away.

  
“Fine,” he grumbles to himself, “I guess I can get rid of the cameras.” Picking himself up he starts going through the valley to collect the cameras. It takes him a couple of trips, none of which are accompanied by the sensation of being watched. Matt starts thinking about everything he just learned. One the alien is probably really shy, two the alien is reckless because they clearly pulled their rescue stunt without thinking, not to mention the kid they’d saved. They’ve also probably tried their absolute damnedest to make going into the valley to track him an exercise in futility one Matt might have just ruined. “Way to go Matt,” he grumbles as he loads the last thing of cameras into the jeep, “might have just scared the greatest discovery you or anyone else has ever made back to their home system.”

 

He thinks about that for a minute “unless the guy is stuck here, in which case you just made an ass out of your whole species.” Matt resolves to figure this thing out because there is no way that this is something he can just leave alone.

****

 

Kaathe leans against the cold rock of the cave finally back in the place he feels somewhat safe. He realizes that he’s just revealed himself to the single most single minded, tenacious, and cunning out of all the monster hunters he’s had to dodge. “You could have just let him fall,” except no Kaathe’s never been that kind of person, “you could have just left,” except as the first time he’s built a place for himself, like it or not this is going to be the hill he’ll die on, probably literally now. “Fuck, I don’t wanna be dissected by the Garrison.” Kaathe falls into a sitting position, sliding down the cave wall, bringing his knees up to his chest he puts his head down and lets himself have about thirty minutes of unrestrained hyperventilating panic attack.

 

Deciding that half an hour of mental breakdown is more than enough Kaathe stands up and takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders, and marches towards his nest to try and figure out what to do about this. Arriving in the cave with the lion he decides to work through everything out loud. It might be talking to himself which he does remember is one of the clear and concerning signs of one’s descent into madness. Over the month and a half of living next to her though he’s started to get the sneaking suspicion that not only is she alive but she’s sapient. He looks at her particle barrier, “ya know, maybe you being alive is just a product of my defined crazy being made manifest. I don’t care, I was kidnapped by aliens, turned into one, and now I’m hiding from my own species in a cave with a giant alien robot cat. I think I’m entitled to going a little crazy.” There’s a deep rumble like laughter that washes over him, reminding him of laying in a river with the pull of the current trying to tug him but only just noticeably. “Thank you I’m glad you agree. God I don’t want to move.”

 

That statement is met with a tendril of questioning and an undercurrent of worry. “Oh nothing just that Matt kid from the Garrison almost threw himself off a cliff chasing one of his cameras.” There’s disapproval there, she knows he’s the one who put the camera out over said cliff. “Hey I didn’t know he’d be that stupid, and I saved his ass. Which is why I’m probably going to have to move, I would rather not be the next Weekly World News headline. Oh god, ‘Garrison Ghoul saved my life.’ As if my world wasn’t already a tabloid headline.” He puts his head against the particle barrier and screams. Blue radiates feelings that have the same sort of emotional weight as a parent putting a hand on his shoulder and telling him “I know it was a hard choice but you made the right one and I’m proud of you.” He groans slightly, “maybe I should wait a week,” Blue seemed to agree with that statement. “if I see more than a Garrison tour jeep though I am out of here.”

 

That earned him a slightly cranky rumble.

****

 

 

Matt decides to take a different approach, bringing the cameras home he sets them up in his closet in two boxes neatly stacked on top of each other. He looks over his room lab combination. The low sloped ceiling showing it as an attic room, glow in the dark stars and planets meticulously placed in actual constellation patterns meant to mirror the sky above his head. A hold over from his younger days when he was still in elementary school and Pidge was just learning how to walk. He falls backwards on his bed. Mind finally allowed to process everything that happened. “I almost died today,” he frowns because, yeah, he almost died today. The reason he’s not dead is the fact that the cryptid he started hunting as a joke, continued hunting because he was sure one of his classmates was fucking with him and he had to find out who to wreak terrible vengeance on, is real. “Bigfoot saved my life,” his laugh is just a touch manic, but he’s the only one here so it’s not like he can really be called out on it.

 

“I can’t leave it alone, alien life, or at the very least a hitherto unknown, intelligent terrestrial species has been living in the Garrison’s backyard.” That leaves the question though, what are you going to do about it? He can’t go to the authorities without proof. And if he has proof, well, that would start a hunt in earnest. Which would be a pretty shitty ‘thanks for saving my life.’ What did he remember from the incident? He plays it back in his head, certain that the cadet fucking with him was the one calling him he flipped them off. But the person calling him also knows enough English to do so, the person who is in fact a large alien. Which is the explanation he’s going to roll with until disproven. A large alien that seemed to have saved him without thinking if the dawning realization that accompanied a disappointingly mundane swear was anything to go on.

 

“I didn’t even get to hear any extraterrestrial swearing, lame,” swinging himself up and over his bed he decides to type up an incident report while it’s still fairly fresh in his mind. He starts with the incident, how it happened, then decides that this is going to be password protected and hidden, probably deeper than his porn because the one thing he wants anyone to know less about than what he’s into is that he almost got himself killed and was only saved by alien intervention. Then he decides to go for what he can of a physical description, tall, over six foot, purple, black hair or possibly mane with prominent ears. Reading the report from the kid could have biased him, he realizes as he tries to remember the eye color and whether or not there was a tail. Instead he opts to type ‘speaks English’ as the end of his report.

 

Leaning back in his chair and looking it over he makes a contemplative sound, going back out with more trail cameras sends the wrong sort of message. Involving the authorities is right out, if he’s making actual prolonged first contact outside of being obnoxious and or a lost six year old then he’s going to have to act with some sort of tact. Smiling to himself he gets another small fit of laughter, “I guess I’m a better choice than Pidge, but damn Shiro or dad should really be the person out here.” That’s a thought though, involving either his father or Shiro, not immediately, going out in numbers will probably just freak the poor guy out again but something to keep in mind. Until then though, Matt places a hand on his heart and solemnly swears to his empty room “I will do my utmost to represent the best of my species.”

****

 

 

Kaathe is laying on his belly watching the pool at the center of the oasis, more specifically watching the desert tortoise slowly crawling across a fallen log. He’d been there all morning, trying to decide if he should risk a peek out into the desert. More accurately, he’s been wondering at the acrobatic feats of the desert testudine instead of going out into the desert to see if he is currently under siege by Garrison officials, cryptid hunters, curious onlookers, or all of the above. Blue has been rumbling in the back of his head every fifteen or so minutes he opts to not get off his butt and stop procrastinating. Despite not actually using words he has learned that Blue can be surprisingly verbose. Blue preens a bit at the observation proving she is first and foremost a cat, blue, mechanical, interstellar and possibly divine -or at least quasi divine- all being secondary. She sends a more forceful nudge his way, this one has the tone of a nag, almost a ‘do your homework’ overtone.

 

Kaathe shoots a look over his shoulder, a pointed one, he bundles all surly, possibly teenage, attitude in it. “Yes mom,” he drawls, and notes with frustration that Blue has taken a distinctly smug tone in her unmoving stoicism. He’s not hers, he knows that much, she’s waiting for someone and that someone isn’t him, despite how they may feel regarding each other as allies and possibly friends, for a given definition of the word. “God help whoever it is you’re waiting for because they are going to have a giant robot space cat running their life.” The silence of the lion echoes an ‘ _I don’t know what you could possibly mean’_. Kaathe levels another look, this one ends with an eye roll for good measure.

****

 

 

Matt woke up at nine, left the house at ten, and by ten forty five and is now sitting in front of a cave, not just any cave, the cave he saw his cryptid flee into after their encounter two days prior. Forty eight hours is an appropriate amount of time to wait for awkwardness to no longer apply right? Unless his cryptid is avoiding this cave, that would make sense considering his track record. Something tells him that it would very much not be helpful to try tracking down his alien though, that the best course of action is to let the giant purple whats-its come to him. He will hereby refer to this internal source of advice as pocket Shiro, because it has Shiro’s voice and it amuses him to do so.

 

Pocket Shiro points out that his existence may actually be a sign of heat exhaustion and that Matt should drink some water, reapply his sunscreen, and stop making faces at the rattlesnake in front of him. Matt does the first two but decides to remind pocket Shiro that the rattlesnake is the most interesting thing out here and were it not for the creatures unimpressed glaring at him while sunbathing he probably would have wondered off hours ago. Pocket Shiro, ever the nag his namesake is, has the rebuttal “calling it a day might be the best possible decision.” Which might have been true had the tension in the back of his neck indicating that a large predator is watching him not started to make his hair stand on end. “Take that pocket Shiro,” okay sure it might be a cougar and he might be about to die but still. “I know you’re out there!” Take that indeed.

****

 

 

Kaathe makes his way to the cave entrance he’d fled the small annoying human with zero survival instincts, on the assumption that if there is a crowd of people come to gawk at him they will probably be clustered there and he should smell, hear, or sense with his as of yet unnamed sense them. He is going to pretend it isn’t psychic powers, because he doesn’t need to add psychic powers to the growing list of ‘reasons I am a freak.’ He doesn’t smell or hear anything so, thinking that maybe there isn’t a crowd and he’s safe to come out he creeps towards the entrance, then he sees the kid from the incident two days ago, and hears something that sounds a bit like his habitual mumbling. Kaathe lets a low growl of frustration, he doesn’t see any cameras maybe he can go back and use a different entrance. Unless the kid just got more clever about placing them.

  
Unfortunately he’s not as clever as he thinks he is, or the human picked up more from their game of ‘hide the cameras’ than he’d given credit for because after a non sequitur of “take that pocket Shiro” _what?_ Is the dreaded “I know you’re out there!” Kaathe backed up a bit only for the boy to stand up and brush his pants off. “I mean okay it could be a cougar or something but I’m pretty sure it’s you out there. You know I don’t bite right? You don’t have to be scared.” Kaathe bristled at the insinuation, “’m not scared of a hairless ape,” he mumbles. Too bad it was evidently loud enough for him to be heard because Matt grins broadly, “thought so.”

****

 

 

When he makes clear that he knows the alien is out there he hears a muffled “fuck fuckity fuck.” He approaches the cave slowly and with a marked caution, “you know,” he starts casually, “I’m kind of disappointed you swear like that. Not just because I was kind of hoping to learn some sweet alien swears.” There’s silence, Matt’s hoping that since he can’t hear the sound of something large beating a hasty retreat that means he hasn’t lost his audience. “I also wanted to say thanks, I mean, I’m guessing that it was kind of a pain in the ass having me putting cameras all over your home.” That earns him a small chuckle, one that also sounds a bit like a scoff. “Still you decided to save my life back there which I’m pretty happy about. You know even if I did end up having to spend a bunch of time relocating those cameras.”

 

He can see his target stiffen a bit, “I took them down, probably kind of a crap thank you for saving my ass but it’s the only thing I could think of at the time.” When he sees the figure relax a bit he decides to lean forward a bit putting his arms up on the ledge between him and the cave. “I’m still kinda mad about the ones you broke, I spent a lot of time on those, to say nothing of the money.” That earns him a scowl, he can make out enough of the so called ghoul’s face for that. “Don’t wanna be gawked at,” it’s low, and has a growl to it that probably should have Matt more worried than he is. “Can’t really blame you for that, you know I didn’t actually think you were real?”

 

That earned an actual growl, and a “bullshit.” Matt smiles slightly wider, “It’s true! Mind if I come up? I wont go near the cave if you don’t want but my shoulders are starting to cramp.” He doesn’t get a worded response just a shrug, taking that as his cue he scrambles up the side and plonks down in front of the cave entrance, as he makes his mad dash up the low ridge to the cave he continues talking. “I thought you might be a misidentified something or other, and one of my asshole classmates was the one messing with my cameras.” Resting his head in his hands he’s pleased to see the ghoul has stuck around, they’re now crouched resting on the balls of their feet. “You got a name? No offense but I’m not super keen on the whole ‘ghoul’ thing, not the least of which because it’s inaccurate.” Matt thinks he hears a muffled ‘not a zombie’ and considers that maybe alien archaeologist or anthropologist might not be so far off. “Demon from Islamic tradition,” he responds out of habit and that earns him a look. “Wow, you don’t even have pupils, how the hell can you roll your eyes at me?” This apparently ends the conversation because all he receives is a low “fuck off.” With the alien standing up and stalking off, but Matt gets confirmation of a tail.

****

 

 

Kaathe watches the human leave from one of the higher caves, before returning home, Blue radiates a certain amount of satisfaction, almost as though asking if he had fun. Kaathe can feel his ears heat up slightly. “He’s a total dork, but I don’t think he’ll be messing around with cameras anymore.” Blue purrs slightly in the background clearly proud of him. “Yeah I get it, I get it, you made your point,” he’s annoyed, Matt’s been giving him trouble, but. It was nice, even if the dweeb just wants to meet an alien even though he’s not one, not really, not that Matt would no that. Not that he’s ever gonna tell him. Having someone around who physically talks back and is not in his head. At least he’s like ninety seven percent sure Matt’s not in his head. Blue makes a comment, Kaathe’s ears fold back, “I am not! And mind your own beeswax!”

 

Blue’s laughter fills the edges of his senses like the sound of a brook happily winding through the desert. Kaathe returns to his nest and decides to ignore her.

****

 

 

“Kaathe” Matt is startled out of his reverie by the voice, leaning back he smiles broadly, “what? Not that I’m not happy to see you but I don’t get it.” He gets a look again, “my name, it’s Kaathe.” Matt smiles, “cool name, I’m Matt.” He holds out his hand, Kaathe looks at it for a moment then shakes it, “I know. You talk to yourself when you set up cameras.” Matt climbs to his feet freezes a moment then smirks, “stalker.” Kaathe huffs a small laugh, “yes, you are.” Then turns and walks back towards the cave, being followed by an affronted noise and a shouted “rude!”

 

“You planted cameras around my home, I reserve the right to tail your ass to make sure you aren’t going to be trouble. Which by the way, you totally are, needing rescuing like that.” Kaathe shoots the comment over his shoulder while he scales a large boulder with the ease of a puma in it’s natural habitat. Matt sulks a little, “you’re a softy, I did my research, the first grade friend you made a while back had a lot to say about the lion monster that walked with her through the desert.”

 

Kaathe groans, “I knew that was going to bite me in the ass,” Matt laughs a bit at the grumpy alien. “Man, I’d be worried about you if you didn’t seem so intent on doing right by people.” There’s a huff, “yeah well don’t get used to it, I’m not the norm in the universe.” Matt tilts his head a bit and Kaathe looks at him, “most people don’t do things just to help others. You’re only here because you want to study me.”

 

Matt shrugs, “studying you wouldn’t do much good unless you were willing to pose for a photo,” he holds up his phone with a mischievous smirk. “Hell no,” is all he gets, from Kaathe. “Dang, worth a shot, and okay I might have a vested interest but I know a few people who probably wouldn’t out you. Probably even help you do whatever it is you’re doing here.” Kaathe stretches out on the boulder, “and what exactly am I doing here?”

 

“Running theory is archaeologist,” Matt replies bluntly, “studying the guardian spirit carvings I’m guessing.” Kaathe’s tail flicks upwards a couple of times, “good theory, but I’m going to have to say no on that one.” Matt looks intrigued, “oh? Then why are you here?” That seems to get a pensive silence that lasts a few minutes, Kaathe genuinely seeming perplexed by the question. After a moment he fixes Matt with a stare, learning which direction he’s looking in is still tricky but Matt thinks he’s starting to get the hang of it. “I guess the best answer I can give you is that it’s the best place for me right now.”

 

Matt glares at him, “that’s not cryptic as fuck.” Kaathe grins, “so I’m a cryptic cryptid?” Matt groans loudly, “ugh, that was a solid Shiro on the scale of awful jokes and I hate you so much right now.” Kaathe for his part just looks smug.

****

 

 

Matt arrives the next weekend bearing a small plastic bag; Kaathe arcs an eyebrow at him. Matt pulls out a bottle of ‘healthy fur’ per shampoo, Kaathe, Kaathe just gives the look that says he’s about to leave. “Is this your way of saying I stink?” Matt makes a face, “not really, I mean, I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t smell you but, it’s more your mane dude, it’s a birds nest.” Kaathe self consciously plucks at one of the tangles in his mane, “it’s not like I can really groom out here, I don’t even have a mirror.” Matt smiles, “I do though! And I have water, and brushes!” Kaathe looks over the supplies biting his lower lip for a moment before nodding. “Alright, I guess it couldn’t hurt,” Matt grins and starts unpacking.

 

“You sure that’s enough water?” Kaathe asks with a look like he’s debating something. Matt considers asking him what he’s thinking about but decides against it. Whatever it is that’s got him quiet is probably something he’ll pull away from if pushed. Matt’s starting to learn all about Kaathe’s little nueroses, or at least that they exist and a decent amount about what triggers them but not a lot about what caused them. It’s clear that Kaathe’s been through the ringer, but what that means for him is something he’s still letting the alien come to grips with on his own. Kaathe seems to come to a decision. “This way, he says marching over to the ledge where the cave they first met is. Kaathe scales it easily then helps Matt up onto the ledge himself.

  
The two walk in relative silence, Matt trying to keep track of the turns but he finds himself relying wholly on Kaathe. The large alien stops every so often to wait for him to catch up. About halfway through the cave system he comes to realize he trusts the big fuzzball. It’s something that takes him somewhat by surprise, the two haven’t known each other for that long but between Kaathe saving him and everything he knows about him. Including that he’s been through some shit. Well it’s made him think about the alien like a friend more than anything. At the end of the cave system they come to a large open area, the oasis that Rover picked up before crashing Matt realizes. This must be where Kaathe’s been living, the fresh water, game, and the cave riddled sandstone and isolation makes it perfect. The top is open to the sky, small waterfalls pouring out of the caves, some probably over seventy meters up. All flowing into a central pool. For him to be allowed here means Kaathe trusts him as much as he trusts Kaathe, possibly more, since trust doesn’t seem to be something that’s been rewarded in his life.

 

Kaathe turns around and gestures to the oasis, “welcome to my home.” Despite the flourish of it Kaathe looks nervous his ears back, his smile a little too strained. Matt just takes in the sight and smiles, “this is way cool.” He’s rewarded with Kaathe’s smile looking more genuine and the tension leaving his shoulders.

****

 

 

Kaathe escorts Matt to one of the smaller pools where the water gathers on a ledge before finishing the journey to the oasis. Matt rolls up his sleeves, Kaathe is not amused, “no; I can bathe myself.” Matt is undeterred, “I’m sure you can but it might be easier to have someone else do the mane. At least while it’s in this… state.” He smiles, and Kaathe growls in the back of his throat but ultimately relents plonking himself down in the middle of the pool, ripped shorts and all. It takes a while but eventually he’s managed to lather up his fur without thinking too hard about Matt slowly untangling a number of snarls in his mane. Occasionally a pull will remind him that he’s back there, only once was it hard enough to make him flinch, and that was mostly because he was unprepared. “Sorry,” Matt mumbles working through a few, snipping others away with a small pair of scissors.

 

“’s fine, been through worse,” Kaathe mumbles, “prison aint really a picnic.” Then exactly what he said registers and he flinches back, internally cursing himself for being so stupid. He looks back when Matt’s hands go still, he turns around to find Matt staring at him. “You were in prison?!” Matt looks way to excited and not nearly fearful enough, Kaathe would be questioning the boy’s survival instincts if he hadn’t seen him almost dive off a cliff for a camera. As it stands he knows the boy has no survival instincts. “Were- Are you a space pirate?” He can practically see the stars shooting out of Matt’s suddenly very wide eyes. “Are you laying low from a tyrannical galactic empire? Or a not so tyrannical galactic government? Either works man I wont judge.”

 

Kaathe heaves a very put upon sigh, “no I’m not a space pirate,” even with his memories a mess he knows _that_ much. “I don’t even know why I was in prison,” Matt gives him a look, “okay fine I have a suspicion as to why I was in prison but that is not something I feel like discussing.” Matt holds up his hands, he didn’t mean for his tone to be as harsh as it is but it’s a sore subject.

 

He looks down at the water in front of him, “the guy who busted me out might have been a space pirate though okay?” Matt’s expression goes back to awe in so little time that Kaathe is starting to have regrets again. “He was dressed more like a ninja though,” he says absently and realizes that little admission was a mistake.

****

 

 

Matt sputters because okay dropping that kind of bomb is not something you get to just walk away from. Why was Kaathe in prison? Is that why he’s here now? Is Kaathe lying low? Has he been hanging out with an intergalactic crime lord this whole time? Okay, maybe the doofus who he’s been hanging out with isn’t really crime lord material but still, these are questions that need answers!

 

So of course Matt is going to give voice to all of those questions at once, ending with the most important of the list, “how do you know what a ninja is? Is there a space Japan?” His only response is the look he gets when Kaathe is fed up with him. This is confirmed when Kaathe says, “no,” stands up, shakes water and residual suds all over him, and starts stalking off towards his cave. The one that is probably where he sleeps, the high up one that Matt was considering trying to climb to. “No what? No there isn’t a space Japan? No you aren’t a crime lord? No what? The public has a right to know!”

 

Kaathe just pokes his head out of his cave, “good night Matt.” And with that talking time is over. Growling a bit himself Matt shouts back, “this isn’t over you know I will be back!” A purple hand emerges and waves him off.

 

“Also I’m pretty sure I don’t know how to get back out,” he crosses his arms and hears a small ‘fuck.’ Kaathe’s head appears over the edge scowling. “I know so much for your dramatic exit. Now quit being a baby and at least let me finish your mane.” Kaathe grumbles the whole way back down, sitting on the ground and letting Matt take a rock. “I’m not that much younger than you… I think, time’s hard to keep track of in space jail.” Matt makes a noise of agreement filing away the comment about his age for later, though he wouldn’t know directly. He was already certain that Kaathe wasn’t the type of person who belonged in prison, but hearing his age confirms that much in Matt’s mind. “Especially space jail run by an evil witch.” Matt glares at him, “you’re just fucking with me now.” Kaathe shrugs, “it’s true, she shoots lightening and everything, though you’re right it could just be some sort of technology that looks like magic.”

 

Matt thinks on this for a while, still not one hundred percent on if he’s being fucked with or not, “well if it’s advanced enough tech is there really that much of a difference?” He’s pretty sure that if magic is real that it runs somewhere in the school of quantum mechanics, if for no other reason than it’s the field of science that likes to piss him off.

****

 

 

Theoretical Biology, a Garrison elective course taught by one Samuel Holt. It’s also one of Matt’s favorite classes. His dad is the literal expert who wrote the literal book (which managed to spawn from a nine page dissertation) on the subject. Though today it’s mind numbingly infuriating, Matt loves, cherishes, and respects his father. But he knows for a fact, that bipedalism is a thing in alien biology and sure nature could organize her kingdoms on other planets in some freaky shapes, probably does. Earth biology is terrifying enough, he still gets the heebie jeebies from the lecture on bedbugs in intro biology. That said the alien he knows, the alien he has conversations with after school and weekends when available, is bipedal.

 

And he has to sit on this, he has to sit, and he has to listen to the astronomical odds against there being a species capable of interstellar travel and that the likelihood of finding a non-microbial or simple lifeforms is a billion to one. And however many other theories there are on the subject. He’s mentally screaming, he’s about ready to burst a blood vessel. “And my son who seems to be really very eager to add his own two cents to this lecture should probably raise his hand before he explodes.”

 

Matt snaps back to reality to find his father and the class that’s still paying attention staring at him. Matt takes a deep breath, lets it out, he loves and cherishes and respects his father, but he’s probably going to kill the man. “Yes, well, I know you’re the expert on this, but this is all still really hypotheses isn’t it? I mean it’s not even theory because we don’t have the means to test it so for all you know there could be giant purple aliens walking around thinking the hairless apes running around New York are just adorable.” That response earns him a few chuckles, the Garrison “Ghoul” might have died down after the initial few sightings but there’s still a lot of people who are one hundred percent certain something hinky is going on out in the desert. Especially when bored teenagers makes up the majority of the buildings population.

 

Sam’s expression quirks into a wry smile and he turns back to his powerpoint because nothing screams riveting like powerpoint. He’s doing this on purpose Matt thinks to himself. “That is an oddly specific example Matt, and with the burden of proof on the person presenting perhaps you’d like to share yours.” His heart stops for a minute before he realizes this is just his dad messing with him and he internally starts screaming, he can also feel a twitch in his cheek just under his eye. “Fair enough professor Holt,” Sam raises a brow because that’s the tone Matt used when his dad took the speakers from his prank what feels like a lifetime ago. Ah past Matt who had no idea what an alien could possibly look like, or how surly they could be, what a sweet summer child you were.

****

 

 

Apparently Matt not voicing any of his concerns regarding aliens in class does not mean he’s not going to say anything on account of Kaathe is watching Matt pace back and forth across the oasis while listening to him rant about all science regarding alien life. “I hope you know you’re not really selling me on this whole coming out to the world thing.” Matt stops mid rant, “what?” then he pales, “no no no, that’s not what I meant, I was just...” He narrows his eyes, “you’re fucking with me aren’t you?” Kaathe responds with a smirk, “ugh, I almost fell for that, you asshole.” Kaathe just leans back a bit, “not my fault you’re oblivious.” Matt sticks his tongue out, “I blame your lack of pupils.” That seemed to cause Kaathe to deflate a bit which means that something Matt mentioned tripped the bundle of psychological issues that he suspects is the result of the prison time.

 

He’s joked about it before, but something about the haunted look he gets, which maybe he can’t read Kaathe’s eyes but he can certainly read the set of his shoulders, the hardening of his jawline, the droop in his ears. For someone so clearly alien Matt notes he can read Kaathe about as well as any human. Better since they’ve spent a fair amount of time together. He makes a contemplative noise at that and ends up with a claw in his face poking his cheek. “What is it?” Kaathe sounds annoyed, but that’s Kaathe in a lot of things. “Hmm?” Matt looks up at him. “You’re doing that thing,” the alien responds.

 

“What thing?” He has a thing? Since when has he had a thing? “That thing where you go all quiet because you’re trying to figure out if you should ask the question you really want to.” Oh, that look, Shiro has told him almost the exact same thing on occasion, though for different reasons. “Just thinking about if you’re ever going to let me finish the work we started on your mane?” He smiles broadly at Kaathe who looks completely exasperated. Expecting him to walk away he’s surprised when Kaathe instead turns around and presents his head. Not complaining Matt gets to work.

 

“So how old are you?” Matt asks, Kaathe stiffens, “you don’t have to answer.” Kaathe snorts a bit, “I know that, I tell you to fuck off often enough.” Matt works the brush through the his friend’s mane, “that you do.” Kaathe is quiet for a moment, “dunno, they didn’t keep us appraised of time passing, I’m going to guess I’m around sixteen or seventeen.” Matt stops, he hadn’t been kidding when he’d said younger than him. Though maybe his species matures at a faster rate, or just gets really big, there are a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. “Your government’s fucked man,” Kaathe’s laugh is there but it is very bitter, “I don’t even know who they were, honestly they could have been the space pirates. The whole thing stinks of a black-site though.” Matt smiles at him finishing up the last of his work on Kaathe’s mane, “you are such a disappointment sometimes. If there wasn’t all the ‘clearly an alien’ stuff I’d assume you were a guy in a costume given how much you know about Earth. Especially since you don’t even have a radio.”

 

Kaathe looks at him, “yeah I do.” But as maddening as ever Kaathe doesn’t feel the need to elaborate and in point of fact seems more amused than anything at Matt’s desire to know more.

****

 

 

Simulation day the day when all fresh faced young recruits happily file in to a small box for an hour of stressful flight practice and then get yelled at by Iverson for another five to ten minutes. It’s oddly enough, the day everyone looks forward too. Particularly Matt, who has communications duty for Shiro, which is a rare treat, since Shiro has long since graduated and he’s about to graduate. This was, he was told, because the two were being examined to see how they work together and if this simulation goes well they will probably be working together for a long time until the final decision on the project is made.

 

This is military jargon for “we have something very cool, but also probably pretty risky and we want to make sure you aren’t a total fuck-up.” And it is him being tested, no one in the group could imagine Shiro, the Garrison’s golden boy, fighter class at sixteen, fighter pilot between earth and mars at eighteen. Everyone had been quite excited about him staying with the Garrison’s space division when a number of major commercial firms had been courting him. Commercial firms that could pay much better than anything the Garrison could muster for any individual salary. Matt takes a deep breath and has Shiro’s hand on his shoulder. “You’ll do fine Matt, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have on comms than you.” Matt smiles squares his shoulders and then marches forward to what can easily be described as his future.

 

The simulation is intense, not only is he expected to maintain his station but a couple of nasty surprises were thrown in. Including a small fire, to handle, Matt was running too much on adrenaline to remember to be nervous about the total results moving from one task to the next with vicious focus hardcore tenacity. Shiro having to concentrate on compensating for any external problems and guiding the ship into a number of controlled maneuvers that probably would have had Matt drooling in some capacity if he had the time to focus on them. Which he very thoroughly does not. Luckily after what he’d found out later was an infuriating two hours, no wonder he had to wait until everyone else was finished in the simulator. At least two stress induced heart attacks, “no I’m not being dramatic Shiro” that comment is directed at all available Shiros pocket and life size.

 

When he gets out it’s not surprising to see everyone else has gone, it’s also not too surprising to see his dad standing there. What is surprising is his dad, Iverson, and at least two people with the mark of an admiral. Matt instinctively goes into a salute and attention. “At ease cadet Holt,” Iverson says and his dad steps forward. “Matt you’re probably wondering what that level twenty flight test with Shiro was about.” _Level twenty!? Okay no wonder it was so stressful_ , “uh yeah, level twenty? Really?” Sam shoots Shiro a look, Shiro just shrugs unashamed, “you guys are the ones who told me not to say anything.” Sam sighs, “yes well, we are planning a new mission, one that both Shiro and I had been selected for, it will take about a year of solid training before we’re even up. But I wanted to recommend you for the third slot on the mission. The communications officer position.” Iverson stepped forward, “you’re graduating in a month cadet, and with your grades I seconded that recommendation. What do you say cadet Holt, want to be one of the first people on Kerberos?”

 

Matt’s eyes bug, he looks between all the assembled brass and starts tripping over at least five different equally enthusiastic variations of “yes sir!”

****

 

 

Kaathe probably should have been suspicious of the package under Matt’s arm, okay he is definitely suspicious of the package but he was just too surprised in general to be properly wary. “What’s that?” Matt looks at him and grins, “well yesterday I got some really good news, so I figured that I’d do something special.” Kaathe arcs a brow, “why does something good for you equal you bringing something out here?”

 

“Because I had some extra spending money and okay maybe it’s not the absolute best thing I could have gotten but it’s something that should fit… Mostly.” What he pulls out is a long brown coat, “largest size I could find.” It’s leather, with a red lining, Kaathe grabs it, and it’s a bit short, but it’s solidly built. “Come on, come on! Try it out!” Slowly Kaathe shakes the coat out and throws it on, his initial assessment is correct, it’s small on him. Not too small though which is a surprise, “I wanted to get you something other than,” he gestures at the make shift tatters that Kaathe’s been wearing. “But I wanted to make sure what I got fit you, so now I know roughly your size, I think I can work with this.”

 

“You didn’t need to,” it’s very quietly said, but the way Kaathe’s hands have pulled the coat tighter around him like he’s worried it’ll fly off with out him to ground it says that yeah, yeah he did need to. He waves it off like it’s nothing though, because that seems to be how to handle this kind of stuff. “No but I wanted to, besides, like I said, special occasion. I’m going to space!” The expression on Kaathe’s face goes guarded, then very very concerned as Matt goes more in depth about the project. Matt walks over to him, “it’ll be a while before I’m up there.” Kaathe lets out a breath but starts walking towards the entrance to the oasis, it’s a sign the visit’s being cut short. “I know, I just, give me a bit okay?”

 

Yeah, Matt saw this coming, Kaathe gets overwhelmed, he shuts down. “Alright, I’ll come by this weekend ya?” Kaathe nods a bit and the journey out is made in silence.


	6. Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the Kerberos mission looms over our cast we ask ourselves one great question; will there ever be a vld fic I write that resists the siren's song of eighties references? The answer is no, no there will not.

Katie frowns down at her tablet, the battery having finally given up the ghost. The real problem isn’t so much the death of her battery as it is her lack of a replacement. Which is less of a problem than an annoyance, since she’s certain Matt has exactly what she needs somewhere in his room. And as far as she’s concerned he owes her for the amount of time she’s spent slaving over the trail cams.

 

At least this is the excuse she decides to use when she goes snooping. Because the reality is, her brother cut the feeds, so either he found who moved them and got back at them. In which case he’d be bragging, or he gave up which is very unlike her brother who’s sense of fortitude manages to loop from admiral virtue to dangerously insane. Which means there is a new aspect to this mystery. Which is going to drive her up the wall until she finds the cause, and exposes it. Or just finds out the cause, the exposure is secondary but would be a good way to get back at her brother for leaving her out of his plans.

 

What she was expecting to find was Matt having decided to stop updating her on the recordings, what she was not prepared for was finding all of the trail cams he’d spent so much time and money modifying stacked neatly in the closet. “Pidge what the hell!” She tenses _, busted_ , she turns to him not the least bit nonplussed.

 

“that’s my line!” She growls gesturing emphatically at the neat boxes of trail cams. “When did you decide to call off the search?” Matt rolls his eyes and stomps into his room, then he grabs the door and closes it, not hard enough to slam, but definitely proving that he’s not happy with his sister’s behavior. “I’m not calling off the search I’m doing maintenance and trying to fix the broken ones. They’re stacked in my closet because I don’t have time to fix them with the mission training and some of us don’t keep our room in a post disaster state.”

 

She scowls at him and he returns it, “what mission training? And my room is fine.” Her brother blinks at that both bewildered and annoyed. “Didn’t dad tell you?” She intensifies her glare and adds a note of incredulity, “what do you think? Would I be asking if he did?” Matt smiles back at her in the way that says he’s about to be a shit. “In that case you need to bug him about it.”

 

She snarls, it’s impressive if she does say so herself, “fuck you, he won’t be home for another four hours!” Matt slumps backwards into his desk chair and shrugs, not at all repentant, “oh? Well too bad for you. Now I have homework to do, go on shoo.”

 

She stands up, “I’m going to hotwire your car into a ravine one of these days Matt. Just you wait.” He doesn’t even turn around, just gives a jaunty “bye-bye Pidge.” She stalks out of his room, and slams the door as she leaves.

****

 

 

Once she’s out of earshot Matt breathes easier, she’ll definitely make him pay for that later but so long as that isn’t continued grilling about the cameras he’s fine with it. He pulls up his current project and alternates between that and his homework. He begins downloading the various programs he has set up from his current tower to the bulky secondhand field laptop he’d bought online, the seller promised that while it’s an older model it’s perfect for field work. While the computer is cycling through the full suite of his work copying everything he decides it’s time to Pidge proof his room. Or at least the stuff he doesn’t want her to find.

 

First thing he does is hide things that are mildly embarrassing in relatively open spots, second thing he does is hide the truly mortifying things in much more secure places. Finally once that’s done he gets up on a chair and slips his notes on Kaathe between two ceiling beams. No matter how she might try to deny it, unless she’s really hunting for something or it’s really obvious his sister often forgets things above her eye line. Oh she’d be pissed if he said it out loud but Matt’s been grocery shopping with her. Over five and a half feet and it might as well be invisible. Over five feet and tucked into a niche and it’s the perfect hiding spot.

 

After all that Matt decides to settle in with his latest recording turning on some music to make sure that Pidge, should she be listening hears nothing but mumbling. “So I’m pretty sure Kaathe’s gonna be cooled off next time I’m hanging out with him but I’m also planning a bit of a peace offering. His people, these galra seem to put a pretty high value on independence as a general rule. Or that’s what I would say if the cagey boy would actually talk about his people. As it stands it’d be kind of a massive assumption to think Kaathe’s the defining member of his species. Though they seem to share enough in common physically with large cats that I wouldn’t be surprised if they tended to be relatively solitary. Outside of family groups, though maybe not because isolation has not been kind to Kaathe, still too little data to go on. Update on physical attributes though, the mane is not isolated from the rest of the body’s fur, and the black mane part is something of an overcoat with a purple undercoat closer to the rest of his body. Lastly the fur around his chin and elbows is slightly longer than average...”

 

Outside the door, Pidge frowns and wrinkles her nose at the music blasting through the door, “fine I didn’t want to know what boring thing you were up to anyway.”

****

 

 

“Hey” it’s quiet but still heard, Matt looks up from his spot on the rock floppy hat covering one eye and his journal in his lap. He smiles broadly, “sup?” Kaathe shuffles a bit before settling on the rock next to him, “’m sorry.” Matt closes his journal and looks up at his friend, “don’t worry about it, it’s a big deal and it was kind of out of the blue, for me too.”

 

His smile turns a little sad, “I have about a year’s worth of training before I have to go, and I’ll be really busy for it.” Kaathe nods like he’s not really listening that closely. “Which means we should hang out as much as possible and not argue or whatever while we still got the time yeah?”

 

Kaathe looks at him and offers a tired smile, “I have no idea how you manage to be so Bouncy all the time. Please note the capitalization there.” Matt just shrugs, “legendary Holt energy I suppose, I’d say you should meet my sister but that would require her to spend more than ten minutes outside. So I have no idea how that’ll work.” Kaathe just stares at him, “no, I couldn’t handle two of you, I know my own limits.”

 

“You’re right, we should start slow, maybe at a Shiro and work our way up to a Pidge.” Kaathe crosses his arms, “I thought you said we shouldn’t waste our time with arguing? Because, no, no I am not being interviewed or meeting up with a Garrison officer.” Matt looks at him and pouts, “I’m going to be a Garrison officer you know?” Kaathe just hops off the rock, “you don’t count, you aren’t one yet and you promised me you wouldn’t and I know you. If you tried to tell on me the guilt would eat you alive so badly you’d stage a rescue on your own if you even could get that far.”

  
Matt looks mildly offended, “since when do you know me that well! You’re not supposed to be the people person, and Shiro’s not Garrison, well I mean, he is but he’s like not really? Seriously I saw the man tear up over a group of coyote puppies. Hardened military officer he is not.”

 

Kaathe looks dubious, “my answer is still no.” Matt shrugs, “I’m tenacious and stubborn. I can wait.” Kaathe rolls his eyes which is still something that Matt adamantly refuses to acknowledge should be possible without pupils dammit. Before he can argue the point any further Kaathe looks at the base of the rock, “what’s with the boxes.” Matt pouts, “I was going to give you a gift but since you wanna be such a shit I think I’ll just go home.”

 

Kaathe shrugs, “okay, suit yourself.” Then he starts walking away only for Matt to take a leap off the rock and latch on to his shoulders, “oh my god you absolute bastard! I’m trying to do something nice.” Kaathe starts laughing, “I thought you were going home?” Matt starts pulling back trying to unbalance the freaky alien giant. “Alright, alright, show me oh magnanimous human ambassador what’s in the box?”

 

He grins, “That’s better, help me get them into the cave and I’ll show you.”

****

 

 

Matt makes a show of putting down the box he was carrying, Kaathe just sets the two in his hands down like a normal person. Looking Matt in the eye the whole time, making a clear statement of “see some of us aren’t overly dramatic children.” Matt sticks out his tongue proving that it doesn’t matter what kind of example Kaathe sets. Kaathe starts laughing, “So what is all this stuff?”

 

Matt smirks and flips open the lid, “ta-da!” Kaathe looks in the box and frowns, there a stack of familiar desert camouflage colored plastic boxes. “Oh good, trash, just what I always wanted.” Matt scowls and slaps him on the arm, “I was thinking security grumpy cat.” Kaathe gives him a look that could only be called acidic, and realizes too late that based on the grin on Matt’s face that’s a nickname he’ll be hearing a lot more of. “What? They’re solar powered, the DNR uses them so no one gives them a second glance and they last for a long ass time before needing to be updated.”

 

“I fail to see the point,” that’s when Matt opens the box he’d been carrying, more accurately, the carrying case he’d had slung over his shoulder. “If they’re hooked up to this you can see who’s out where doing what when you make your excursion plans. That should cut down on the ‘Ghoul sightings’ that crop up every so often.” Kaathe can feel his cheeks heat and wonders what that looks like from the outside, he’s good at staying hidden, but he’s not perfect. “What happens when the computer runs out of power? Also how much did this cost?” Matt starts setting up the computer, “I can get a solar cell out here next week. As for cost, just the sketches you’ve let me make,” Kaathe snorts, “and teaching you how to draw something other than stick figures?” Matt frowns, “rude, but fine yes and that, I think this is a fair trade.”

 

Kaathe bites his lip considering his question for a moment before deciding to roll with it and ask, “How good are you with hardware?” Matt gives him a look, “depends what you’re asking.” Kaathe looks up at the cave where he’s hidden the supply vessel, “I’m going to guess that something that can cross a galaxy in about five minutes might be able to power a laptop...” Matt balks, “are you suggesting I hook this computer into your ship? Also what the five minutes, fuck, what?” Kaathe settles on a rock watching Matt process the full implications in amusement. “It takes us months to get to the edge of our solar system! I’m going to be gone a year to Kerberos!” Kaathe frowns and rests his head in his hands, “we’re on a backwater planet of primitives in the dark ages? You don’t say. Also five minutes is an exaggeration.”

 

Matt puts his hands on his hips, “I am offended on behalf of my species right now, like wow, that is, comparatively true I guess, but still fuckin rude boy.” Kaathe arcs a brow, “I’m twice your size.” Matt shrugs, “and half my age apparently.” Kaathe growls, “I’m like a year younger than you jerk.” Matt just smiles, “grumpy kitten.”

 

Kaathe’s gaze goes flat, “get out.” Matt makes a show of being hurt, “no ‘thanks for the cameras?’ You’re just using me for my money aren’t you?” Kaathe stands up, “thank you for the cameras, and get out.” Matt raises a brow himself, “and if I don’t want to?” Kaathe stands up and scoops the other up flinging him over his shoulder, “what the fuck are you doing Kaathe?!” Kaathe ignores his thrashing, “taking out my trash.” The offended noise Matt makes in response echoes through the cave system.

****

 

 

Matt lets out a breathless gasp and staggers to the bin and gags, he doesn’t vomit but the medication to prevent sickness from the G-forces is wearing off. Iverson laughs because he’s a sadist, “take ten cadet Holt, and reconvene 13:50.” Matt offers the most half-assed salute he can before sinking down the wall with a groan. Shiro walks in looking fresh as a quiznacking daisy, he does so love that word, Kaathe managed to bring at least one space swear and it sounds goofy as all hell, it’s amazing and he loves it. Shiro does have one redeeming feature today, coffee, he immediately snatches the cup from Shiro’s hands and starts chugging.

 

Shiro just stares at him, “I’m starting to feel a little cheated not going to lie, you only love me for running errands for you. How am I supposed to believe in you and trust you in deep space now?” Matt throws up his middle finger, “I just finished four hours of training and I have another three on top of my other studies to go. Shiro, I love you and cherish you, as a friend, colleague, impromptu dad, and occasional goblin wrangler.” Shiro makes a small exasperated noise, “I don’t think Katie-” Matt cuts him off with a hand in his face “but, that love will not save you if you come between me and caffeine right now.” He looks down at his coffee, already mostly gone, “ugh, this is absolutely awful.”

 

Shiro shakes his head and takes the bench next to Matt, “yes it is, it’s from the mess.” Matt takes a breath and downs the rest, “that would do it yes. I bet even Kaathe wouldn’t drink this crap.” Then he freezes realizing what he just said. Shiro shoots him a look, “who?” Matt coughs a little bit having inhaled the last bit of the coffee, Shiro pats his back until the fit subsides, “just a friend from one of the forums. Outdoorsy type, but I think all the camping has killed his tongue I don’t want to think about the stuff he’s eaten.” Walking in on Kaathe disemboweling and skinning a lizard he intended to roast was probably the worst possible time to walk in on him. Between that and the other incident he’s taken to loudly announcing himself and hanging back until he hears Kaathe reply.

 

Not a perfect system considering the time he spent half an hour lurking in the tunnels because Kaathe had been out hunting. Desert birds being less traumatic to see slung over his shoulder than some of the things he’s seen the large furred alien bring down. “Alright cadet, break is over back in the machine, now or you’re getting an extra half an hour.” Matt winces, he turns to Shiro pleading look in his eye, “light me on fire please.” Shiro the complete fucking traitor just looks bemused and shakes his head.

 

The second verse is much the same as the first, nausea and full body aches as he’s forced to adjust to the new regimen. He can almost hear pocket Shiro agree with his new friend pocket Kaathe that Matt needs to practice more and they said he should take up running or try training with Kaathe. _Holding me to the standard of Bigfoot is not a fair comparison you two._

****

 

 

Turns out Kaathe is just as ridiculous as his ‘pocket’ version, because once he learned that Matt was doing physical condition he made the demand that Matt join him while hunting. Matt groans, “All my friends are evil sadists who want me to die before ever leaving the atmosphere!” Kaathe does not care in the slightest based on his reaction which just makes it more insulting. He just continues forward, “your ability to be silent is worse than your coordination. Your coordination is shit by the way.”

 

Matt scowls, “we can’t all be grumpy cats from space.” Kaathe flicks him with his tail which had been trailing in the dirt causing Matt to sputter and sneeze. “I told you not to call me that dingus. Though you are right, there can only be me, which is how it should be.” Matt pokes his ribs, “going highlander on us? There can be only one!” He says in a dramatically deepened voice while flexing.

 

Kaathe just shakes his head, “something like that.” Matt gives him a look, Kaathe sighs, “I’ll tell you later, before you leave definitely, it’s important but, it pertains to my… to the hospitality I experienced before coming ho- here.” Matt’s expression doesn’t change but he does give Kaathe’s arm a squeeze.

 

Kaathe snaps out of it and smiles, “talking time is done, you gotta earn your breaks tonight.” Matt groans, then groans louder when the game decides to take off into the bush. “Fine, but then I get to teach you something deal?” Kaathe’s eyes narrow suspiciously, “what?” Matt grins, “Math.” Kaathe frowns his expression morphing into one of clear confusion, “I know math?” Matt just smiles wider, “not this math, trust me, you’ll like this.” Kaathe looks dubious but he follow his friend who decides to be thankfully quiet. Quiet enough for him to take down a scaled quail, which Matt has most assuredly decided Kaathe can have.

 

After the bird’s been cleaned and roasted, and Matt’s stopped looking quite so green, he’s pointedly avoided watching Kaathe prepare and eat his food, deciding instead to work on something on his computer. Kaathe eventually joins Matt near the computer, “so what is this math thing that I am supposed to be excited to learn.” He still sounds dubious, “you know your species developing interstellar travel was probably the result of math.” Kaathe shrugs, “well I’m not an engineer am I?” Matt pouts a little bit, “no what you are is a surly teenage grumpy cat.” Before Kaathe can complain about the nickname Matt continues, “Anyway what this is, is a code. One I taught Pidge, dad and I developed it to talk when he’s on away missions without the Garrison knowing, since we aren’t supposed to talk outside the specified contact periods.”

 

Kaathe crosses his arms, “sounds fucking stupid, the rule, not the code.” Matt laughs, “Better be talking about the rule, and yes, that’s why we made the code. What the Garrison doesn’t know about they can’t restrict. Anyway it’s kind of complex so pay attention would you?” It takes the rest of the night but eventually Matt manages to get Kaathe fluent enough to send messages back and forth across their computers. Teaching him how to break into the contact signals of the Garrison and commercial ISPs is a bit harder. Luckily the tech in his ship’s comm system is strong enough to brute force anything the earth has, just overriding the signal if need be. Matt decides to work on the finesse of it though since that kind of thing can get tracked pretty easily. “Alright buddy, if this works you’ll have a window into the wider world of your own.” Kaathe watches over his shoulder with what can only be described as rapt fascination.

 

Then the fascination leaves his gaze, “alright, before you leave though, sparring.” Matt goes pale and looks at him, “you’re kidding.” Kaathe crosses his arms, no he is not kidding, “you just want to do this because I’m the only human around to torment don’t you?” Kaathe chuckles but his non-answer speaks volumes. By the end of the evening Matt’s more sore than he’s ever been, “I know I might not hate you later, but I hate you right now, just so you know.”

****

 

 

Shiro changes out of his street clothes and into his Garrison uniform, removing his watch to get his shirt over his head. As he buttons his uniform shirt and returns his watch he takes one last glance at the photos in his locker, his parents and grandmother back in the Saitama prefecture. One of him and the Holts on the launch of their Europa mission. Last is of a scrappy kid in a red jacket, he has pale skin, dark hair, and a look of belligerent suspicion that would have teachers and parents alike thinking of disciplinary action on general principal. The picture is small but Shiro remembers the expressive violet eyes of the boy. Sharp and intelligent, despite his stoic or bored look he remembers Keith being able to pick up on the smallest details of everything. A quality that some of his teachers valued and tried to nurture, but too often got him into trouble. Smiling sadly Shiro closes the locker, he’ll take them with him to Kerberos, his family have always told him how proud they are, the Holts are his team, and Keith is his brother no matter how long he’s been missing. Garrison’s ban on personal effects on away missions is one rule he’s fine ignoring.

 

Walking out into the harsh fluorescent lighting of the Garrison training center Shiro takes a breath. The air is stale and sterile, recycled through the ventilation system, the Garrison using a mostly closed system for the experimental technology. It’s one of the least inviting places one can imagine to work. Still he wouldn’t work anywhere else. He often wonders how Keith would have done in the Garrison, during the youth flight program he learned the kid could _fly_ , but he also hates hospitals and has some serious issues with authority. Shiro is almost certain the stubborn little spitfire he helped to mentor would have excelled anyway. Shiro shakes his head, angry with himself, it doesn’t matter how long Keith’s been gone, four years or forty. He’ll never give up on his little brother. Squaring his shoulders he heads for the flight deck where the specialized gear for their mission is setup.

 

Entering the room he finds Sam already there and waiting for him, behind him is a state of the art simulator designed using the schematics for the updated long range craft that Sam had been helping to build. “Looks good Sam,” Shiro says, it’s an honest compliment too, “ready to start her up?” Sam chuckles and shakes his head, “not yet, we’re still waiting on our third.”

 

Shiro smiles and gives a weary chuckle, because Matt will never be on time when the time in question is earlier than nine in the morning. Still it puts him above Katie who’s not so much useless as an active hazard to be around before ten. Unless she’s been up all night, then it’s a fifty-fifty chance at being an active hazard.

 

“Matt’s been spending a lot of time out in the desert and I somehow doubt he’s got the sense to keep to his sleep schedule. Or barring that, give himself two weeks to adjust.” Sam shakes his head, “I think he might be starting to believe that ‘ghoul’ talk.” Shiro arcs a brow at the older man, “is this about that lesson you had it out with him in?” Sam shakes his head, “I wouldn’t say we ‘had it out’ certainly doesn’t hold a candle to professor Argent and mine’s argument on taxonomy.” Shiro flinches, that particular ongoing “debate” has become a horror story across the Garrison.

 

The doors hiss open and Matt arrives with a cup of coffee. His eyes light up when he notices the ship, “is that her?” Matt sets down his coffee and embraces the prototype, “she’s going to be beautiful when she’s done if this is anything to go on. What’s that? You want a name? She has spoken to me, and I know her name.” He shoots a grin over his shoulder, Shiro narrows his eyes, and says “we aren’t naming it GoLion.”

 

Sam coughs lightly into his hand and avoids Shiro’s gaze, “you didn’t.” Sam shrugs, “well it didn’t have a name, so we had a raffle… Matt and Katie submitted the same thing, between us I think they might have gotten Colleen to submit one too.” Shiro groans and Matt looks smug, “we’re calling it GoLion, you were just looking for the perfect chance to drop this on me weren’t you?” Matt looks completely innocent, confirming his guilt without a shadow of a doubt.

****

 

 

“Okay! That should do it.” Matt says looking at him, Kaathe looks at the device with wary suspicion the way one might examine a bomb. “It’s a computer not an IED grumpy cat,” Kaathe rolls his eyes, “you’re positive that no one can track me using this?” Matt sighs, “listen, I’m not going to say they can’t, I will say that unless you plan on assassinating the leadership of our nations and or enslaving us to some sort of purple space furry empire no one’s going to bother.” He smiles up at Kaathe, “see isn’t it nice to not be important?” Kaathe’s look manages to somehow combine surly teenage unhappiness and also be incredibly bland, “it’s fantastic.” Matt’s turn to roll his eyes, “well come on try it out sometime this century please.”

 

Kaathe gets down at the laptop’s level and turns out to be surprisingly dexterous on a keyboard in spite of the claws. Matt holds up his phone, the alien, Kaathe looks at him, “no.” He frowns, “c’mon, just one picture! For posterity!” Kaathe’s expression is unreadable, stupid lack of pupils, “no” he says again. Matt wrinkles his nose, “fine, be a grumpy alien.” He looks at his watch and curses, “quiznack I’m going to be late!” Kaathe smiles and shakes his head, “and no one looks at you weird saying that word?” Matt just shrugs without shame or worry. “Lots of people look at me weird, they’d do that no matter what I do, so I’m just not going to worry about it. Laters.” Kaathe nods watching his friend charge off down the canyon’s entrance tunnel. Then he turns back to the computer, “I hope he at least put some games on it.”

 

About an hour later and he’s working his way through a couple basic internet searches, most of them pertaining to the Garrison and surrounding lands. These initial searches spark a final query out of a morbid sense of curiosity he looks up “Garrison Ghoul” what he’s rewarded with is a rabbit hole of cryptid and conspiracy forums. Reading through the posts Kaathe feels his hackles rising. The assumptions being made are laughable, ludicrous, and insulting, emboldened by righteous indignation he makes an account and starts replying to some of the more onerous ones. He finds himself in a heated back and forth with a user named CubanScottsman, with several other users, those currently posting, taking bets.

 

This leads to the question, “and how do you know so much about the Ghoul?” Kaathe stills, he hasn’t revealed anything much. Even so, “because I am an alien and a goofy kid befriended me and gave me internet access” is too unbelievable, it’s like the plot of a cartoon. So instead he goes with, “I bothered to pay attention in biology, theoretical or otherwise, and I live in the area.” Not a lie, technically, considering he’s absorbed what probably amounts to a high school level biology education from a combination of Matt and relevant books Matt brought by because he thought they could have a laugh together. Which they could, and they did, the science of his existence had placed the odds so massively out of favor for him that it was kind of funny in a mean spirited kind of way.

 

Turning on a dime fast enough for Kaathe to get whiplash the other user invites him to join his discussion server. Because he is quote, “a worthy opponent and rival in the realm of the weird.” Also because the server’s chat is more user friendly than the forum and if they kept arguing they might get banned or at least kicked.

****

 

 

Matt decides to get some cryptid conversations going, since the cameras got put up out in the desert he finds himself needing to be more present in the server. Pidge’s sudden suspicions about him would only intensify if he dropped the server entirely, besides he likes the rag-tag group of monster enthusiasts he’s managed to join. What he is not expecting to find is a new member in a heated debate with the Cuban.

 

CryptidKat: I’m just saying that you can’t grip the controls that tightly, or yank the steering that hard.

CubanScottsman: Oh yeah and what do you know? You flown anything before? I’m telling you the manual says that you have to keep a firm hand.

CryptidKat: Normally yes, but if you try and yank too hard during maneuvers you lose control and will crash, the manual is a guide, not gospel.

CryptidKat: If you can’t think on your feet then you’re a crap pilot.  


Matt chuckles because that’s almost identical to what Shiro taught him and then reiterated during flight training. Though Shiro put it in a nicer way that made him want to learn. Whoever Kat was they did not know much about getting someone to agree with them.

 

CryptidKat: Also yes I have flown before, probably in a more dire situation then you.

 

Matt decides he needs context for this one because da fuq? The argument continues around him and the other person.

 

InvaderMatt: Sup my bizarre home slices?

InvaderMatt: Like seriously, sup? I leave for a little bit and suddenly there’s a noob in the crew and he’s arguing with the Cuban?

SwollenEye: Leave for two weeks and that’ll happen.

CubanScottsman: Yeah, and I call bullshit, no way you’ve flown.

InvaderMatt: Sry guys, life’s been nucking futs.

CryptidKat: I have but if you don’t believe me idgaf.

SwollenEye: I get, and to answer your question

CubanScottsman: Say that too my face.

InvaderMatt: @SwollenEye DM me? These two are going to go a while huh?

 

A private window opens and Matt chuckles hearing the pings from the public server continue the rhythm of that most common and pointless of past times, arguing over the internet.

 

InvaderMatt: So what’s going on?

SwollenEye: Apparently Kat was invited by the Cuban they were arguing about the Ghoul, since Cuban’s been on that since you showed us those pics and apparently Kat lives in the area the sightings occurred. How that turned into the argument about flight procedures you’d need to read the logs for because fucked if I know.

 

Matt laughs, though listening to the back and forth he is probably going to have a lot to sift through if he wants to find the exact turning point. _Huh, a pilot that lived in the area?_ The odds of that are disturbing, unless it’s another Garrison cadet. Matt somehow doesn’t think that Kaathe would be the type to get wrapped up in a pointless argument, too freaked out by people. Unless someone got him mad, which he realizes is possible given some of the things people post about the Ghoul. Still it’s pretty bizarre and unlikely. On the other hand, Matt’s got a nagging sensation he doesn’t like. He opens a DM window to the new person in their group and shoots a quick ‘brb’ to Eye.

 

InvaderMatt: So you a Garrison brat then?

CryptidKat: No, you?

 

Matt hisses through his teeth, that bad feeling pricking at the back of his neck getting worse.

 

InvaderMatt: Yeah, people on the server know me and my sister Pidge, since our dad works there and I just graduated to full time.

CryptidKat: Oh, Matt

CryptidKat: Do you know what that Cuban guy’s problem is? He’s been badgering me for like an hour.

  
Matt stares at the message for what feels like an eternity, he takes a deep breath and lets his fingers do the freaking out for his voice.

 

InvaderMatt: KAATHE?!

CryptidKat: Uh, yeah, hey?

InvaderMatt: WTF!??!

CryptidKat: I was on this forum and then some stuff happened.

InvaderMatt: ASDGFHJK!?

CryptidKat: I don’t get it.

 

Worst thing about that explanation is Matt could buy it. He takes a deep breath and begins damage control.

 

InvaderMatt: I’m glad you’re socializing but try to avoid talking to Greensunszenith, because that’s Pidge and unlike Cuban who’s dense as a neutron star or Eye who doesn’t care. Pidge is smart and sneaky and I think she’s suspicious of me.

CryptidKat:…

InvaderMatt: What’d you do?

CryptidKat: Nothing, she private messaged me, she knows I know you but not in what capacity.

 

Matt puts his head on his desk, and softly weeps for his sanity.

 

CryptidKat: She told me to tell you

CryptidKat: :3

InvaderMatt: Of course she did.

CryptidKat: In fairness I’m probably the only person you know who could actually get away with using that emote.

InvaderMatt: Fuckin furry.

CryptidKat: Not by choice.

****

 

 

Kaathe is sitting with his head in his hands trying to decide if he’s really about to let his only friend in on the second biggest secret in his life. “Sorry Blue, you are definitely important to me and probably more important than my… issues, but you’re the safer topic.” Blue rumbles in his head, an unspoken sentiment that he’d be safe, that Matt would never betray his trust. That what he’s endured makes him admirable, not pitiable. Maybe one day Kaathe himself can believe that. Matt enters while he’s lost in thought and manages to startle him. “Wow, did I actually manage to spook you?” Kaathe shakes his head, “I was distracted.” Matt gives him a cheeky smile, “really? Just distracted? Maybe you finally think of me as belonging here and you’re slipping.” It’s a joke, but it’s one that pokes his fears, its Matt’s way of testing his limits. Kaathe looks away, “that is a concern, and maybe I am too comfortable having you around.”

 

Matt looks startled for all of a second before breaking into a huge dopey grin. “Well you’ll have plenty of time to miss me, then you can be back to your jumpy paranoid self.” Kaathe just shakes his head and starts walking off, climbing up to his cave, “aw c’mon man I didn’t mean anything by it.” Kaathe just reaches down, “I know that, but I have something to show you. Now you coming or are you gonna embarrass yourself by trying to climb up here?” Matt’s eyes bug out before he scrambles up to take his friend’s hand. “What is it you want to show me?” Kaathe doesn’t say anything just leads on.

 

They walk for about five minutes until they hit they arrive at Blue’s cave. Matt lets out a gasp, “is this your ship?!” Kaathe just snorts, no, she’s not mine, and she’s way beyond my ship. He smiles up at the lion, she’s something else is what she is.” Then he turns to Matt expression serious, “Matt, be careful out there, you’re the only person on your team that knows about the galra.” Matt looks at him, “I mean, yeah, but you don’t think they’ll cause problems do you? You’re here because they don’t come here often.” Kaathe looks at the lion, “they’ve been here at least twice before. Trust me Matt, what I know of my people does not paint a flattering picture. They aren’t good, they don’t care what you have or haven’t done.” Matt puts his hand on Kaathe’s arm, “I’ll be careful okay? We’ll be fine.” Kaathe nods and tries to think of something else.

 

Matt fiddles with his phone and Kaathe sighs dramatically, “alright, only one though.” Matt beams, can we take it with the lion?” Kaathe nods, “I think she wants that honestly.” Matt cocks his head to the side, Kaathe shrugs, “could be I’m just crazy but she seems to have a mind of her own. Thoughts and feelings and stuff, it’s just a sense I get.” Matt nods, “ya know, if I hadn’t seen her I don’t think I’d believe you.” He props his camera up on a rock and joins Kaathe in front of the glowing blue energy barrier. There’s a click to tell the photo was taken. After retrieving his camera he starts examining the murals decorating the walls of Blue’s cave.

 

“Look at these, they’re like the murals in the canyons but more detailed.” He’s right they cover every inch of the cave wall in a spiraling pattern from the ceiling before cutting off at the very bottom, the last one depicting a meteor and a blue human figure standing with a depiction of Blue. A line stretches from the pair to four stars, red, green, yellow, and black.

 

Matt looks over the mural, Kaathe runs a clawed hand over it “whatever it is, it’s talking about an arrival of some sort.” Matt takes a couple of pictures, “huh, weird.” Kaathe looks at him, one ear raised with the other turned downward, it’s an expression Matt’s come to read as ‘questioning.’ “Well a lot of this stuff matches up with star dates, and the arrival mentioned is actually in the future, according to this, and my calculations, it’ll happen about a year after we’re set to arrive on Kerberos. So I bet we’ll be back by then, in that case I’ll come out here and wait out that arrival with you. Sound good?” Kaathe puts his head down against Matt’s and Matt can feel more than hear the deep rumble of Kaathe’s purr, “yeah, sounds good.”


	7. Going Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here come da pain friendos

The day of departure is hot and dusty, the sky having the ruddy complexion of middle dawn. Shiro’s family gives him lots of hugs and tells him to be safe. Adam is there to see him off, even though they aren’t together, or are on break? It is complicated and Matt’s not one to keep track of relationship drama especially drama as emotionally fraught as the stuff between Shiro and Adam. Still it’s a good sign that Adam came to see him off isn’t it? They shake hands and Shiro goes to join Sam and Colleen in finalizing the prep work. He and Katie wince, “oof, they are going to have a hard time working this out assuming they want to.”

 

She looks at him, “I’m pretty sure they do, or at least Shiro does.” Matt sighs, “They both gotta, and Adam’s hurting. I tell ya Pidge, he should have mentioned Kerberos to me sooner because anyone could have told him to take at least a week to discuss it with his family and fiance. Do fiances count as family? I mean once you’re at that point they ought to right?” She looks at him, and he glances back, “nothing? No response at all to being called ‘Pidge?’”

 

She just throws her arms around him, startling him but he quickly returns the hug. “I don’t hate that nickname anymore okay? Just, come back safe.” He smiles, and rubs her back, “I will Pidge, keep mom and Bae Bae company for dad and I right? And try to grow at least a little while I’m gone.”

 

She smacks his arm and laughs the tears clearing from her eyes, “you absolute moment ruining ass.” He affectionately ruffles her hair earning him an indignant squawk and another smack on the arm. “What can I say, you being all accommodating of me is weird and unnatural. I was worried that an alien saboteur had replaced you for a minute.”

 

They look up at the ship, “just wait, a year will fly by Pidge, I’ll be back in time for your own embarrassing Garrison years.” She hugs him again, “you better be.” They both look up at the sky, Matt heaving a sigh when Shiro and Sam both call him being ready to leave. “Alright, see you in a year, and talk to you in a few days alright?” He takes out his old glasses, he had the lenses changed out for basic glass, they’re just a fashion statement now, “here, for luck.”

 

She nods and takes the glasses, then she turns and joins her mother in being ushered back to the departure area to watch the takeoff.

****

 

 

Kaathe looks out over the rocky wastes leading to the Garrison buildings and the launch platform. The EMF device strapped to his bandolier of packs, his coat swaying softly as the wind blows around him, he watches the smoke on the platform, watches the craft take off into the sky and fade into nonexistence, watches until the sun lights the sky from rusty red to vibrant blue. After the end of it all he stands up and makes his way back to his home. Shooting off a single, ‘welcome back’ to the phone he knows is sitting in Matt’s room.

****

 

 

The week after the launch Kaathe finds himself going stir crazy. Without Matt there to talk to him or bother him he’s back to talking to Blue just to make sure he doesn’t forget how to use his voice. Things are a bit easier with the server, and a couple games his computer can support. Matt also decided to leave him a tablet with a bunch of books on it. He’s making his way through the second read through of the _Incryptid_ series, Matt had downloaded it as a joke. Despite that Kaathe has come to seriously enjoy it, though he’ll never admit it to Matt.

 

He can feel Blue send a tendril of concern his way, “I know, I know, I’ll go out in a little bit okay?” He doesn’t feel much like it, he’s gone hunting, gone for runs, even checked out some more Garrison tours from afar. It sucks, all he can think about when he’s out there is how much more fun it’d be with Matt. How watching the two cadets bickering would be better with Matt trying to get him to do a voice over with them, despite his hearing being good enough to tell what they’re shouting at each other. Or translating the pictographs and murals in the caves. Or even hunting, trying to see how long it will take before Matt gets annoyed enough to blow his cover entirely and then laughing at him when he does. Basking in the pride of accomplishment with him when his friend actually manages to bring down some prey.

 

Kaathe growls, shutting down the tablet and grabbing the coat, running out of the cave, he goes for hours on end until his legs ache with effort and he’s back at the burned shack. Back at his father’s grave, it was moved shortly after the Holts had uncovered it. Kaathe doesn’t like the idea of anyone having disturbed his father’s remains. He lays down next to it, the last time he’d been out here was the first time he’d seen his face. A face that seemed like a terrible perversion of who he should be, however little of that he remembers. The face that started to feel like his own recently, he’s still not sure how to feel about that.

 

There’s one person who doesn’t give a fuck, one person who decided to stick by him even though he’s an alien freak. Kaathe decides to count the stars and name the constellations. He’s happy for his friend, even if he’s not happy about being left behind. He knows he shoul get used to it. After all, it will only be a matter of time until Matt’s truly off on his own and Kaathe gets left behind for good.

****

 

 

“Whatcha doin?” Matt jumps a bit when Shiro drifts over to him and looks over his shoulder to examine what he’s hunched over doing. Being extremely obvious about not wanting anyone to see what he’s doing. He glares at Shiro and Sam gives him the look. “Ugh, fine I was sending a message,” Sam frowns, it’s not our check in time and it’s not our scheduled check in with the family either.” Matt scowls right back and Shiro chokes a moment.

 

The look hurts him, he knows Matt doesn’t know it, can’t know it, but the look still scrapes at a wound that won’t ever fully close. That look is so close to the look Keith used to shoot his way whenever he was annoyed or frustrated. “I know that, and yes dad I am being careful, but I’m messaging a friend of mine okay?”

 

Sam doesn’t look too convinced, Shiro looks at him, “that person you mentioned a while back?” Matt flinches, Shiro knows him, that while he’s not a shut in he doesn’t get super close to a lot of people. Matt is gregarious and makes casual acquaintances easily, but because of that and his odd quirks for him to know trivia like the type he mentioned about this Kaathe guy it’s probably closer to he and Matt’s friendship than the people that sit by them in the mess.

 

Matt sighs, “yeah, Kaathe, I wanna make sure he’s doing alright okay?” Sam makes a thoughtful sound, “you haven’t met this person have you Shiro?” Shiro shakes his head, “nope.”

 

“Neither have I, Matt you’ve been spending an awful lot of time out in the desert too.” Both of them have noticed, hard not to with the tan Matt’s been sporting. Matt groans, “oh my god you guys it’s not like that, so don’t give me that look please and thank you. Kaathe’s younger than me; I think.” The two look at him, “hard to tell okay, he’s really tall but he’s got a baby face.” More accurately he has a juvenile’s mane and residual kitten fluff.

 

“He’s fine though, we’ve been hanging out for a while and he hasn’t done anything to make me wary.” If anything the amount he seems to trust Matt has made him sure that if either of them is in a position to wreck the other’s life it’s Matt. Sam doesn’t look convinced, “Matt, I would like to meet this person.” Matt groans because of course trapped in a shuttle for months is when this topic comes up, when he’s trapped and can’t escape. _Fuck my life, fuck it all to hell._

 

“Listen I can ask him but that’s up to him.” Shiro frowns, Sam’s frown doesn’t intensify but it doesn’t lessen either. Matt crosses his arms, the look is ruined a bit by the fact that the ship currently has no gravity and he’s floating slowly in a small somersault. “I’m serious guys, Kaathe’s been through some shit okay, and he’s got some pretty bad social anxiety. It took me a couple months to get him to do more than just meet me out in the desert okay? I don’t wanna crowd him.”

 

The two exchange a look, “I’d still feel more comfortable meeting him.” Shiro laughs, “yeah especially if he managed to get you to make a vow of silence.” Matt pushes off the wall into Shiro, “jackass, he didn’t get a vow of silence, it’s a vow of I’m going to sass all of you for making me gossip about him. He fucking hates that.”

 

“Vow of Sass? So business as usual then?” Shiro replies pushing Matt away slightly. Sam sighs, “boys no roughhousing in the billion dollar space craft.”

****

 

 

That had been two months ago, now they are on the surface of Kerberos taking ice core samples. “If I could meet an alien, well that would be the culmination of my life’s work.” Matt grins at his father, neither of his team even suspecting the irony of that statement. Matt evidently didn’t suspect the full irony of that statement, at least not until the tremor rocking the small moon was accompanied by the dark shadow of an alien vessel falling over them. The universe has a way of proving it’s a rampant sadist.

 

“No freaking way,” he breathes the ship is massive all dark sleek lines and violet highlights, he’s seen a ship like that before. He turns and yells “RUN!” when Shiro yells “MOVE!” They take off running, Matt’s never moved so fast in his life the adrenaline keeping him going as the world and time blurs around him. He swears it must be hours that he’s moving the cold sterile air of his suit burning his lungs, in the end it’s not enough. The violet beam that swept forward behind them scoops them of the planet’s surface and into the darkened hold of the alien ship.

 

He’d tried to warn him, Kaathe had tried to tell him about the galra, now he’s trapped in the hold of one of their ships. A group of armed robots surround them and instruct them to put their hands on their heads and move as soon as they have their bearings enough to register the robot’s presence. It takes a bit to understand since neither human understands much of them. Kaathe tried to teach him some words but language was not something that Kaathe was good at teaching. They comply wanting to avoid getting shot. They are led to what’s likely the bridge and the person waiting for them is an alien. Matt has to wonder if maybe galra is a nation not a single people because the scale covered person in armor in front of him only resembles Kaathe in the yellow eyes and purple skin. The gaze is just as cold and pitiless as Kaathe described his captors the last time he warned Matt about what lurks out in the void. These are definitely the people who had captured, imprisoned, and tormented one of their own people, a child of their own people. Somehow they don’t strike him as the type to treat members of another species any better.

 

“Please,” Shiro pleads, “we’re from a peaceful planet,” Matt scoffs, “don’t bother Shiro, they aren’t going to let us go.” As though the wrist restraints didn’t say that loud enough Matt can feel something in him. Anger, anger at what they did to his friend, what they are doing to him, and his friends now. Impotent fury that he can’t act on outnumbered and outgunned as he is.

 

Shiro tries to reason with them still and gets a rifle butt to his head for his trouble. Matt flinches, but locks eyes with the commander again. The commander narrows his gaze suspiciously. The group is taken away led through the cavernous innards of the ship until they are dropped in cells. Matt buries his head in his knees, “I should have listened to him.” His father looks at him askance but he just promises to tell him later and decides to succumb to the draining exhaustion that’s been plaguing him since his capture. He never gets the chance to explain. Sam Holt is taken away for processing first, then Shiro, then him. He and Shiro are reunited but his father is gone, the words ‘work camp’ being mentioned and Matt can feel despair creep into him.

****

 

 

Kaathe is browsing the Garrison’s site for information on the mission, hoping to get an update of some sort before bed. There is a new update, what it says makes his stomach drop and the ground feels like it’s about to collapse beneath him. There’s a video, he watches it “communications with Kerberos were lost at o-six hundred hours this morning. Reason for the loss of communications is unknown, the crew is presumed lost due to pilot error.” The world narrows and Kaathe finds his breath failing, his only friend is gone, they have no plans for a rescue, he’s alone again. This time, he’s alone forever. He can hear the howl, the same sound he made when he found his childhood home. It sounds like it’s coming from someone else. He can feel the soothing tones of the Blue lion questing for him, they wash through him until he’s able to stand.

 

In a daze he makes his way to her cave, her barrier falls, and he walks forward, slowly each step being made by someone other than him. His mind still replaying the video over and over, the lion opens to him. He’s not hers, she’s made that clear. But for now, she’ll shelter him, letting her presence wash over him his breathing finally stabilizes and he falls into deep dreamless sleep. The type of sleep that belongs to those marched past the point of breaking.

 

The next day when he wakes in an unfamiliar location he panics, the panic isn’t lessened once he remembers what happened. He’s alone again, so terribly, terribly alone. Blue’s presence surrounds him and soothes him, after what feels like forever he gets a sense of stability. The ground, or more accurately his legs don’t feel so shaky.

 

Less alone with Blue there. He stands and makes his way out of the lion. Her barrier returns once he’s far enough away. “Thanks,” he says turning back to her, “sorry I fell apart on you.” The emotions from her are concern and patience deeper than the deepest ocean on earth or in space. “Yeah, I think,” he chokes, he can’t cry, he learned that during his imprisonment, galra aren’t capable of it. Instead he takes a deep breath, “no I’m not okay but. I’ll try to be.” The patience doesn’t abate, then he goes rigid.

 

He dashes to the computer, “I can’t believe I was so selfish,” Blue’s tone turns chiding, “That was her brother and father Blue! I can’t go to pieces now, I can’t.” Finding resolve he gets on the server.

****

 

 

Katie sits in her room, the shock of it, the denial, the anger all having run their course, now she just feels numb. Her eyes are an unflattering shade of red and they’re puffy from crying. She’s not going to school today, her mother isn’t going to work. Her mother did leave though, the Garrison had put her on hold too many times, or simply hung up. She’s decided to march in and yell at them. Katie wanted to go with but her mom said ‘no;’ she doesn’t know why, doesn’t care. There’s a ding, she knows that sound, and she doesn’t want to answer it. Eventually curiosity overcomes grief fueled apathy and she drags herself up and opens the chat.

 

CryptidKat: How you holding up?

Greensunszenith: How do you think?

 

She winces, it’s not fair to be angry at him, not when he and her brother had been friends. He’s trying to comfort her, but she doesn’t want comfort, she wants answers. Pilot error, it doesn’t sound reasonable. She knows Shiro, she’s seen Shiro fly, and she also knows her brother and father. If there was an error it wasn’t human, that’s for damn sure. The chat dings again snapping her out of her reverie.

 

CryptidKat: Sorry that was a stupid question.

Greensunszenith: No it wasn’t I’m just prickly.

CryptidKat: You have the right to be.

Greensunszenith: You don’t deserve the brunt of it though you were his friend.

Greensunszenith: The fucking Garrison deserves the brunt of it the fuckers.

CryptidKat: What do you mean?

 

She has to take a breath before typing her response, the fury from the previous night, the fury her mom’s been riding for the last eight hours returning to her.

  
Greensunszenith: It’s bullshit, Shiro was the best pilot they had, and my dad and brother were the best tech experts in their field.

Greensunszenith: If there is an error it wasn’t on them.

CryptidKat: Then what?

CryptidKat: Think they used substandard parts?

 

It wasn’t something Katie had considered but it would make sense, she’d have to get into the Garrison to figure it out though. She immediately sets to work, getting into the Garrison’s financial records will tell her what she needs to know. Anything more thorough will be harder.

 

Greensunszenith: Dunno, but I’m going to find out.

Greensunszenith: You wanna help?

CryptidKat: I don’t know what your think I can do…

Greensunszenith: What can you do?

CryptidKat: Not much, my specialty is more in the piloting and physical conditioning aspect.

Greensunszenith: Think you could break in or be my getaway driver?

 

It’s mostly a joke but hey, if he’s fine doing that to help she out she wouldn’t complain.

 

CryptidKat: No, I’d be willing if it was feasible but... I’d stand out.

 

That is the weirdest way to phrase that particular answer. Still she’s not going to force him to do anything.

 

Greensunszenith: Moral support then?

CryptidKat: I can do that.

****

 

 

The arena it smells of sweat and spilled blood and death both old and new. The stands are filled with the jeers of hundreds of galra. Matt can see the Emperor and his witch in their private box. He watches as the energy orb of the huge galra gladiator snaps the neck of the hapless alien combatant that went before him. The guards hand him a sword, he barely even registers that he’s actually speaking “oh god, I’m going to die,” sure he’s been sparring with Kaathe but this is, this is something else.

 

He can’t think straight he’s too afraid. Then someone shouts and he’s being pushed aside, Shiro grabs the sword and delivers a long shallow cut to his leg screaming about wanting blood. He tackles Matt and for a brief moment he’s worried his friend has finally snapped. Then Shiro’s expression softens and he whispers “take care of them,” before he’s dragged onto the field and Matt is dragged back to the cells.

 

The cells are dark, he continues Shiro’s tradition of helping the prisoners. Giving basic field treatment or sneaking them extra food if they need it. It’s the least he can do for the man who took his place. His leg has scabbed over and is healing well, he still walks with an exaggerated limp to avoid being taken or moved. He hears that Shiro won against Myzax, the prisoners whisper about him being the Champion, their Champion. They are talking in hushed whispers of awe about Shiro’s exploits when a guard interrupts them. “Don’t get your hopes up you slugs, Champion got sold last quintant. He’s Haggar’s new toy now.” The conversations stopped, the air in the cell going deathly cold.

 

Everyone knows of the druids, everyone knows of the witch, Zarkon’s witch, Matt remembers Kaathe mentioning a witch months ago. He can feel that anger building, he’s heard about what she’s done, horror stories involving monsters made from twisted masses of flesh and cybernetics. Metal soldiers powered by tortured souls, now she has Shiro, she had Kaathe. He realizes that maybe that’s why none of the galra he’s seen look quite like Kaathe, the all look just a bit more human than him. Their fangs a bit shorter, tails being a rarity, plantigrade feet instead of the halfway between plantigrade and digitigrade that Kaathe possesses. She’d done that to Kaathe, to one of her own, and now she’s doing something just as unspeakable to Shiro.

 

The others in the cell hush in fear, he’s angry though, he’s not going to lose hope, not to these bastards. Kaathe survived the worst of them if the rumors of the witch are true, so will he. The guard’s attention is snapped away from them as alarms start blaring to life. Matt herds everyone to the back of the cell and puts himself between them and the door, he holds himself like he’s going to collapse, with luck the guards wont expect to be kicked by his ‘lame’ leg. The wall next to the door explodes and he’s suddenly being rushed out coughing. There’s a soft voice in his ear, it’s whoever grabbed his arm, “do not be afraid we are here to rescue you.”

 

Not willing to look serendipity in the mouth he nods, shuts up, and follows. The corridors are long and twisting, the armed members of whoever’s raiding the galra firing at sentries behind them. They end up in the hangar where a large boxy transport ship is waiting. The person with him turns around and covers her companions and the prisoners. Matt grabs a long rod of metal dislodged in the fighting and prepares to cover them. A guard rears up from behind a crate and aims at his savior.

 

Someone yells “Te-Osh look out!” Matt reacts first bringing the rod down on the guard’s gun it goes off into the floor, then he brings the rod back up into the guard’s face and his companion whirls around and shoots the guard several times in the chest. She grabs Matt and gets him in the transport the rest of her group laying cover fire until they’re all in. “Nice shot,” she says once they’re safe in the transport. Matt just nods, still not used to being that close to death.

****

 

 

Kaathe finishes his breakfast and is cleaning his hands when his computer starts dinging. Drying his hands he looks down at it and frowns, it’s been a couple weeks since he heard from Katie, she’d said she was planning something and would have to go offline for a while. For her to be messaging him again she must have been successful. He sits down in front of his computer and finds that yep, she’s messaged him.

 

Greensunszenith: Good news first or bad?

CryptidKat: Let’s go with bad.

Greensunszenith: Huh, glass half empty guy or do you just like ending on a high note?

Greensunszenith: Anyway, bad news is I got banned from the Garrison and told that if I ever come back I’ll be charged with treason.

CryptidKat: Katie wtf?! That’s not something you just drop on a guy.

Greensunszenith: I’m going to have to try something more drastic I think.

CryptidKat: Oh my god, you’re going to end up in prison aren’t you?

Greensunszenith: I certainly hope not.

CryptidKat:...But?

Greensunszenith: But it is a possibility.

 

Kaathe rubs at his temples, a migraine threatening to overtake him. Still he has to try and dissuade this, she’s going to get herself killed or imprisoned or something else. He owes it to Matt to try and keep his little sister out of trouble.

 

CryptidKat: Pidge, think of Matt, how pissed would he be if you were in prison? What about your mom?

Greensunszenith: The Garrison is covering up something major. Look at this.

 

She links a video, it’s of an empty plain of ice and rock.

 

CryptidKat: What am I looking at?

Greensunszenith: The supposed crash site.

CryptidKat: Where’s the debris then?

Greensunszenith: Exactly! But wait, there’s more!

 

The next thing she links is a picture taken before the probes flickered, a shadow cast over the site, in the corner of the screen, right before that probe went offline, a ship. Kaathe’s fur goes on end, he hisses, “galra.” For the first time since news of the crash he feels hope bud in his chest that Matt might still be alive, and yet…

 

He might be alive but he might as well not be, taken by his people, his ship doesn’t have the range or the fuel to hunt the universe, he has no map. No lead other than his people stole his best friend. Even if he found Matt would Matt even want to speak to him? The galra are monsters, he’s part of that. He’s a galra.

****

 

 

The resistance is a ragtag bunch, though that’s hardly unexpected. They come from all walks of life, all races, and creeds, all unified in that they want to see Zarkon’s reign brought to an end. Matt’s actually started to feel at home here. Te-Osh apparently decided to take him under her wing as sort of an apprentice, he said she’s impressed by his skill, that even though his fighting style is rough it has potential. He told her a very dear friend of his back home taught him how to fight, laughing as he bats away her strike, “honestly I never thought I’d use those skills, I especially didn’t think I’d be using them to fight against the robot soldiers of a ten thousand deca-phoeb old despot.” He’s picked up space lingo pretty well, the nano-machine translators that he’d been given during processing let him understand most things but some words still don’t translate. Which is fine by him, space slang is super cool and his adventure would be way lame without it.

 

“I’m surprised you were so eager to train with me, most of the cadets think my methods are harsh.” Matt ducks under another swing and rolls out of the way of the second strike. Quarterstaff fighting requires being aware of a weapon much longer than your arm and one able to hit you twice in one swing. He’s learning quickly but not without bruises of his own. “Ha, compared to my buddy back home you are a kind and light handed teacher.” He’s not even joking, he remembers the time Kaathe made him try to keep up with him on a six hour hunting trek. Turns out galra, or at least chimeras like Kaathe, can process water and oxygen and everything else more efficiently so it took at least a mile of solid running for Kaathe to start breathing heavily. Might have been more, Matt lost count after a while, it was probably more.

 

“Your friend sounds a bit like a drill instructor I once had.” Matt might tell Te-Osh about Kaathe someday, but he really wants to be sure of her before he does. Kaathe is a not someone to spring on a bunch of galra hating rebels. Te-Osh never seemed to show the same disdain for the whole race many other rebels do but that doesn’t mean he trusts her with his friend’s life. Especially since Kaathe said he’s guarding something important, and Matt’s gotta be honest, Blue certainly fits the mold for something special.

 

“Maybe I’ll tell you about him someday, still I can’t believe people avoid training like this. The empire’s not gonna throw soft-balls our way so we should be ready to take or dodge whatever punch they try to throw.” Te-Osh takes advantage of his distraction to hit him in the gut knocking the air out of him.

 

“We should avoid notice, and fights when possible the empire has us outmatched in nearly every arena.” Matt gives her a weak thumbs up before sinking to the floor. After he gets his breath back she helps him up. “Water break between rounds,” as they sit with the hydration packs Te-Osh looks over at him with curiosity, “why didn’t you return home if I may? I heard Olia offered to take you back to Earth, and it sounds like you have many people who miss you there.”

 

Matt swirls the hydration pack, this is a question he himself has wondered, “at first it was fear,” he said, “I was afraid that the galra had already overtaken Earth, I was afraid of going home accompanied by aliens or just arriving home with no explanation. I’ve probably been declared lost in action or dead, so that’s it’s own problem. Then the longer I was out here, the more of the universe I saw, the more I wanted to help people and stop the empire. I want to find my dad, I want to rescue Shiro if he’s still alive.”

 

Te-Osh is quiet for a moment then she says, “if he was truly taken by the witch I hope he is dead, for both your sakes. I have seen what she does Matt, I wouldn’t wish you having to kill the monster your friend may have become.”

 

Matt nods, “I know that’s a possibility, but I still have to try, otherwise what are we fighting for?” Te-Osh gives him a look that he’s come to associate with the human equivalent of a smile, and she affectionately ruffles his hair. “That is admirable Matt, now come, we have time for one more round before our mission assignment.” Matt groans, and stands up slowly, Te-Osh isn’t quite as Spartan as Kaathe but she is damn close. Also he realizes she might have taken the comparison as a challenge, oops.

****

 

 

Kaathe wanders out into the scrub, it’s his usual routine, hunting and stretching his legs, clearing his head, and bouncing ideas back and forth with Blue. He can still contact her miles away now, as loud and clear as though he were standing in the cave with her. He’s concerned about Pidge, she agrees with him, but she also says that the small human’s sister must make her own choices and mistakes on her journey. As her friend it is his job to help her up should those mistakes cause her to stumble. How she managed to express all of that without so much talking as feeding ideas and feelings into his mind is the real quandary.

 

He remembers asking who she is waiting for once, she said that this was the second time he’s asked her that, and the answer has not changed. Only become more defined. In his defense the first time he asked was before he’d gotten brain blasted by an evil witch. Blue has been both amused and concerned by that, it’s still a sore point, but he’s getting better about living with it. Apparently they’d met before his father died, something about that felt right, that even though he’s not who she’s waiting for, not her pilot she’s been there to help him. Even after he stumbled.

 

“So I guess that makes you my oldest friend, in more ways than one.” She makes a slightly affronted rumble causing Kaathe to laugh. “You never answered my question, or at least this version.” She can see him, she knows him, born amidst the waves, he has so much potential but he needs to be guided. _He’s still lost, even more so than you,_ Kaathe snorts, “I live in a cave in the desert, I don’t think you can get much more lost than me.” Her response seems to imply that at least Kaathe knows he is lost, that there is a torch, a star for him to follow, whatever that means. She’s back to being cryptic, which will probably make sense later and she’ll be ever so smug about it.

 

He stops in the middle of his latest ramble, he’d been so focused on the jackrabbit in front of him and Blue’s half of the conversation he’d almost missed the movement out of the corner of his eye. He sees an impossible image, it has to be a mirage. He stands up and takes a couple steps forward, _great, now I’m seeing ghosts._ He still can’t stop himself from asking; “Matt?” His voice is quiet but loud enough to startle the other person, who turns around. Then he pays attention to the scent, similar to Matt’s but not his, he gets ready to run when the person in front of him speaks, “you’re Kaathe right?”


	8. Katie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did Katie find her way out into the desert with our giant fuzzy boy?

Pidge might have felt off about trying to break into Matt’s room no matter how important is might be to get some of his programs. Her’s were geared more towards finesse than his, they tended to probe security, programming was her art form, it was also her brothers. His style was not too dissimilar from her own, the two having learned from their parents, and practiced on each other at least until they’d decided to form an armistice. She smiles a bit remembering the couple times they decided to download movies and shows from a disreputable site just to invite someone to take a crack at their system. And thus, be justified in retaliating. The smile turns wry, that week had certainly escalated.

 

Her brother’s computer was there, she pulled out her own computer, connected them and prepared to start her attempt. The first of his security programs were like the rest, brutal and efficient, if her own system didn’t change on a dime, and had she not been prepared it might have given her computer a meltdown. She smiles the nostalgia of this moment getting to her a bit. Fingers flying across the keys of her second best laptop, she’s truly in her element here. She smirks a bit, because there’s a new attack, one that’s honestly flattering, it has her brothers utilitarian design, or so it seems, but there’s an adaptability to it reminiscent of her own methods. “Matt you copycat!” She smiles but if it’s like hers it probably has the same weaknesses hers did, weaknesses Matt often exploited. Eventually she manages to break the algorithm and get herself past his security.

 

His phone set up a notification, it was a red box with a very unflattering picture of her that read ‘Goblin Raid!’ She frowns at it, “I can’t believe you managed to be an ass from beyond the grave. My fault I underestimated you.” There’s a number of files, all pretty typical of her brother in all honesty. She hunts the deeper recesses of his computer for the programs she knows he’s keeping hidden. After grabbing them she notices another file, one that was just as hidden as his more blatantly illegal tools. “What’s this? Notes on the galra?” She tries to access the file but it’s protected. Arcing a brow, this is security that he didn’t feel the need to put on his illicit goods, but on this file? Her curiosity isn’t so much piqued as entirely hooked.

 

She starts trying to crack the security only for a screen to appear, it’s part of an attack program. This one is different even from his coup de gras program. It’s not helped by the strange symbols in it, there’s elements of her work, his, and something else something alien. She tries to compensate for it only to find it has outmatched her security and broken through her barrier it’s subroutines already contaminating her files. Worse, they’re erasing the files from his own computer. “Fuck no no no no, Matt you bastard you can’t do this!” The computer is left an inert wiped husk, both of them, the program is brutal, efficient, elegant, and completely thorough. “AUGH” she slams her fist into the wall only to have something hit her in the head. Looking at it she finds a USB drive. Looking up she can also see a journal hanging out of an alcove between two beams in the ceiling.

 

Climbing on to a chair and with a camera stand in the corner she manages to get the book. It’s got the tone of a research or field journal complete with drawings of a humanoid alien, things that look a lot like the descriptions she’s found of the so called Garrison Ghoul. The journal labels the name as Kaathe, closing it she notices that in addition to the goblin notification her brother had received a text, sent the day of the launch and clearly meant to be received when the group came home. It was two words, ‘welcome back’ the name it’s saved under is more mysterious “Kaathe.”

 

She looks between the journal and the phone, maybe this was another cryptid enthusiast? The sketches were rough and amateur but showed a marked improvement to the few times Matt tried his hand at drawing. The notes were his handwriting. “What were you up to?” Resolving to crack this mystery after she gets what she wants from the Garrison she closes the journal grabs the USB stick and retreats to her room.

****

 

 

Katie takes a breath and hooks her mobile device, it may have started out life as a phone but now all that’s left of that is enough storage and processing to act as a mobile cracking tool. The doors to the Garrison proper require a pass card, her school ID has a similar chip in it. Now that chip can get her past just about any security, the device telling the system ‘I belong here.’ She slips into the stark hallways of the Garrison, Iverson was in charge of the mission for the admirals, which means his office probably has the most complete records. Things that don’t have so much redaction to them that they look less like a document and more like a Rorschach test. Taking a breath she slips past the first set of guards, she sets her shoulders and gait into the walk she’d use when visiting her parents. The walk that says “I belong here, I have a purpose.”

 

The first security checkpoint is easy it’s as automated as the gate, all it requires is a badge. The second checkpoint is guarded but by bored cadets that don’t even give her a second glance when she marches past them flashing a visitor’s pass. There’s a third checkpoint to the research and development labs, she’d been escorted there with her parents before. The guards there actually pay attention, luckily, the administrative offices for Garrison staff were not in the central wing. She does have to navigate to the west wing of the building which involves passing through the lecture halls, and past a bunch of cadets.

 

Luckily the holiday cleared out the majority of them. She’s close to Iverson’s office when she hears a loud and very angry voice. “That Griffin thinks he can just walk all over us who the hell does he think he is?!” There’s a skinny cadet with a much larger friend coming her way, the friend replies to him with a questioning, “Iverson’s favorite?” She ducks into a nearby closet and holds her breath, probably not necessary but she’s running on adrenaline. “Ugh, don’t get me started!” The skinny cadet yells loud enough to be heard through the door. “Uh, did you see someone run through here?” The loud cadet’s companion asks. Before he can check the broom closet though the loud cadet yells, “what are you waiting for Hunk, we’re gonna miss lunch!” The ranting gets quieter until finally fading out. Letting out her breath Katie makes her way to Iverson’s office.

 

The office is dull, it has some character in the form of some globes and military iconography in the form of metal statues. There’s a number of books on a shelf behind the large desk with a computer terminal. Making her way over to the desk she starts breaking in, it’s surprisingly easy considering his rank in their experimental space program. Plugging in her portable drive she starts transferring files that seem relevant. The financial records she found hadn’t revealed anything, she tries to see if Iverson had a different version, or communications with suspicious people. Anything would be more than she has at this point. The financials are a bust, Iverson’s records are as clean as the rest, but the trip isn’t a total loss, the probe feeds. They show no debris, no abandoned tools, nothing, the whole plane of Kerberos is empty.

 

Moving quickly the grabs the files from when the mission went dark, what she finds is more alarming than she ever could have guessed. A dark shadow and the brief appearance of a massive ship. Squinting her eyes at the image she’s too distracted to realize that someone’s entered the office until a loud “what the hell!” Quickly grabbing her drive she slips it into the small bag at her side. Iverson’s already got her by the arm. Katie relies on her best distraction technique, angry belligerence, “what happened to my family? You know something and pilot error is bullshit.” The words have their desired effect. Iverson just wants her gone and threatens to charge her with treason if she comes back passing her off to a guard. Neither of them bother to check her, she’s thrown out of the Garrison but with her proof.

****

 

 

Katie tries to sneak into the house having taken the bus to and from the Garrison, she’s in the door, closed it quietly, even managed to avoid Bae Bae barking his head off. She’s hoping she’s managed to squeeze an hour or two of me time out of her day before her mom inevitably came down on her like the sword of Damocles. “Katie can you come here for a minute,” well there goes that hope, because that the ‘you’re in deep shit and I am only barely not yelling at you right now’ tone of voice. “Coming mom,” she slouches her shoulders and shambles into the kitchen where her mom is leaning over the sink looking out the window.

 

“I got a phone call from the Garrison this afternoon,” she flinches, “Katie, you are a brilliant young woman, for someone smart enough to break into the Garrison why were you stupid enough to do it?” Katie sits at the table, “because their story is bullshit.” Her mom gives a hard look, “language, and Katie I know it’s hard but there are official channels that we haven’t-” she stands up slamming her hands on the table, “official channels haven’t done anything mom! They aren’t going to because the Garrison is covering the truth up.” Her mother actually flinches and, feeling supremely guilty because her mom’s in the same boat and is probably worried about her. She should have listened to Kat, but it’s too late to get cold feet.

 

Her mom takes a deep breath, in through her nose, out through her mouth, it’s an exercise she’s been doing a lot since the Kerberos mission went dark. “Do you have evidence to support that claim,” Katie narrows her eyes, “if I do? If I managed to secure evidence from the Garrison’s servers?” Her mother sits across from her at the table, “show me.” Hesitating for a moment Katie nods and pulls up the feeds, “there’s no crash debris, but there’s something else, a disruption of about fifteen minutes at the time of the mission going dark hit the probes in the area.” She pulls up the picture of the alien ship, “the probe feed captured this.” Her mother’s breath hitches, she looks at her daughter, “is this?” She nods, “this is very serious Katie.”

 

The two sit in silence for a moment before Katie speaks up, “I have a plan to try and get more information. I just have one more lead I want to check out first.” Her mother does her breathing exercises a few more times before nodding. “Katie, I am not happy about any of this, and I don’t want you to put yourself in danger. I will try to support you as best I can, and I want you to know I trust you.” She looks her daughter in the eye and places one hand over hers, “please, don’t be reckless, I can’t lose you too.” Katie nods, determination filling her small frame.

****

 

 

Cracking Matt’s security is going to be a challenge, she’d been dubious about trying to plug the flashdrive in anything she owns considering what his security had done to his computer and her second best computer. She’d only managed to get a small bit of data on the program. She’d been tempted to leave a sample of it in Iverson’s computer. Well she thought to herself, if her drastic measures succeeds then she’ll have a chance anyway. Given how transmissible and virulent the program had been she does wonder if maybe it would end up a threat to the Garrison’s whole network. Then she asks herself if she cares, which on the one hand her father, mother, and brother had all devoted themselves to the Garrison and all that earned them was a cover up. To say nothing of Shiro who bore the brunt of the cover up, already the Garrison was making allusions to his mental state.

 

At this point, as far as she’s concerned the Garrison has built up such a surplus of dick moves that no one thing she does will even it out. So yeah, she’s totally going to leave it for them. Not until she has everything she needs though. Which will require, again, cracking Matt’s security, his notes talk about the anatomy of the so called Ghoul, apparently named Kaathe, who is texting her brother? Nope, she’s not even going to touch on that weirdness until she has confirmation of that. Twirling the flashdrive in her fingers she’s decided to try his phone first, which is much easier to crack than his computer, she finds a couple text chats with ‘Kaathe.’ Nothing overly incriminating. It’s almost impressive, you wouldn’t even begin to suspect anything unless you’d gotten a peek at his computer, his phone, and his notes in the hidden journal. It makes her more determined than ever to get into the flashdrive.

 

That’s when she finds the picture, according to the time stamp it was taken about a week before the mission was set to launch. Based on the background it’s in one of the sandstone caves out in the desert. The desert where Matt had been sneaking off too for over a year before he’d left. Cryptid hunting, apparently successful cryptid hunting, because standing next to her brother with a much more shy and nervous smile than the massive beaming grin her brother has, is the Ghoul. Tall, purple, black mane, tail, yellow eyes, it’s all there, all perfect to the descriptions, he’s wearing a brown coat that on anyone else would be considered long. Maybe it’s a guy in a suit, maybe Matt’s buddy is in fact one of the greatest hoaxers in the world. Except she saw the outline of the ship that stole her family. She saw a similar ship in Matt’s journal. They are standing in front of a luminescent shield of some sort.

 

“My brother’s bffs with an alien,” the shock of it sinking in a bit, then the sheer incredulous outrage, “my brother’s bffs with an alien and he didn’t fucking tell me?!” That alien probably destroyed her drone too. She’d spent weeks on that thing. “I’m so mad right now.” She’s also trying to come to grips with the possibility that they were taken because of this Kaathe, but that also seems out of place. This whole thing seems out of place. “Matt, I am going to find you, I am going to find you and then I am going to beat you. I’m also so telling mom.” With that she takes out a rig that she had built with her brother one meant to extract information from portable drives without exposing the computer, they called it the decontamination box. She’s not going to inform her mother until she has the full story herself.

 

The flashdrive possesses some topography and tech schematics, but the majority of the space is occupied by sound files, some with attached typed documents. Probably her brother recording it on paper then narrating. Katie opens the first of the files her brother’s voice fills her head phones. “Okay so today was not my finest hour considering I almost fell face first into a chasm. I can almost feel Pidge calling me a dumbass.” That part is stated as Katie herself mumbles ‘dumbass.’ “That said,” there’s a noise that indicates Matt sighed into his mic, “the ghoul is real, there’s a real mother fucking alien in the desert of the Garrison’s backyard, and if that isn’t enough horrid irony to keep a family of hipsters fed for a year. I didn’t get that great a look and well, any cryptozoologist worth their salt knows eyewitness accounts are sketch as all fuck. I can confirm purple with a black mane.”

****

 

 

While in her room studying the topography of the Garrison’s property as well as looking up the best places to get a fake set of identification and credentials, something she can sneak into the system that wont raise any flags for the Garrison. She knows the name she’s going with, ‘Pidge Gunderson’ she’s also decided to enter as a male, both to take advantage of the old boys network, and to avoid anyone scrutinizing her too hard; particularly Iverson. She has a program automatically recording signals from the point around Kerberos, her mother had helped her build the rig, she’s using a variant of the program she wrote for picking up movement on the trail cameras to automatically pick up and save anything outside the normal white noise. She hadn’t been expecting to get much so the alien radio chatter comes as a small shock, especially once she considers how easily she and her mother set the system up. Her mother had looked at the data and listened to the recording she could pick up, frowns deeply and said, “they really aren’t going to be able to keep a lid on this.”

 

Katie listens to her brother’s notations while she works, the sound of his voice listing off the various attributes of his supposed alien is soothing. Reminding her of happier times at their dinner table or in their rooms arguing about theoretical alien biology. She smiles for much of the recordings he’s clearly tried to sound clinical, or like the host of a nature documentary but then his personality would shine through. Like the time he’d discovered Kaathe’s tail was prehensile and spent an hour harassing the poor guy to test how much he can lift and how flexible it is. This alien made the mistake of indulging him once which meant that her brother voiced every anatomy and biology question that popped into his head. Occasionally she’d hear a surly voice begrudgingly answer some of these questions, or just tell Matt to fuck off.

 

Which brings her to another of the memorable audio file, the one that began with her brother heaving an exasperated sigh and deadpanning in a clearly annoyed tone “subject is confirmed to definitely be male,” and this being followed by an outraged voice in the background, “you’re in my home dude, you’re the one that needs to learn how to knock.” This was followed by about twenty minutes of bickering about the nature of ‘knocking’ when one’s home is a giant canyon without doors, before the voice, almost certainly this ‘Kaathe’ pointed out that Matt had been recording the whole thing. There’s a number of colorful swears and some loud scrabbling before the recording unceremoniously ends. Katie smirks slightly, this was clearly one of those things that her brother either forgot to delete or suspected no one would ever find. Also very clear and present blackmail material for later. Or would be if he was here which just depresses her.

 

She wonders if Kaathe might have set her brother up. He’d sounded friendly in the few recordings he’d been caught speaking in. Annoyed but in the ‘you are one of the few tolerable people I know’ manner most often associated with cats. Also it would have made more sense to abduct him sometime over the months they were together instead of Kerberos. Still it’s something she intends to find out herself, plus the alien’s her best lead. Which would involve getting out onto Garrison property, which also means that she’s definitely going to need to go forward with plan ‘drastic measures.’

 

Sighing she starts going through all the possibly channels she can think of to secure everything she needs. Getting the false ID into the system is going to be easy enough to do on her own. It’s the hard copies of everything that will be tricky. She hopes she can get her mom to help out with that part.

****

 

 

Editing the hours of audio and visual footage they’d collected into a manageable amount that also has enough Kaathe and Matt dialogue to be interesting and convincing takes the rest of her week. She decides to set it up as a video, with the picture of Kaathe and Matt opening that particular part, then cycling through scans of Matt’s sketches and handwritten notes about Kaathe as a slideshow to accompany the audio logs. Finally she sits her mom down in the living room curtains drawn HDMI cable connecting her computer to the television. Colleen Holt looks bemused by this whole thing because as of right now she has no idea what’s going on. Only that her daughter has enough evidence to try and make a case to her mother. And that she feels the need to make a production out of it. It’s a trait she shares with her older brother.

 

“You cut your hair,” she observes and Katie runs an annoyed hand through her shorter hair, she’s also wearing Matt’s glasses, all of this makes her look a great deal like her brother. To the point it hurts. “Yeah I did, I didn’t think it would come out looking quite like this...” Turning back around she sets up the program, “all right so this is basically a video compiling everything I’ve managed to discover.”

 

The video is about forty five minutes long. It starts out with the run down of how she came to suspect the Garrison of covering something up. How with the help of a couple of friends she managed to get the Garrison’s financial records to see if they were using substandard parts. That lead had turned out to be a bust, but not for long because the full results were more than she had imagined. The existence of aliens, this segued into Matt’s crusade to capture footage of the cryptid supposedly stalking around the desert around the Garrison. This is accompanied with a recording of the noise they’d heard camping. Noise that Katie seems to no longer believe was Matt’s doing.

 

The video shifts to the evidence that they’d collected, there’s a brief pause, “he’d suddenly seemed less interested. Stopped visiting the server for a couple weeks and had the cameras packed up for a while. I thought maybe he gave up or needed a break or got told off by a ranger or something for the cameras.” The screen shifts, and Colleen’s eyes go wide at the picture of her son with someone that could only be called human shaped. “Now I think he found his cryptid.” The audio logs start and Katie sits next to her mom occasionally fidgeting. Her mom is stone still, watching the notes that her son had taken, listens to his descriptions, even some of his, what could only be called interviews with the creature in question.

 

“What’s the point if no one’s going to hear this?” His voice was annoyed but also nervous, then Matt’s voice, “well maybe eventually someone will. Who knows, mostly I just want to have it for my reference material, I have stuff that shows I did things with the rest of my friends, why should you get to escape my memento collection?” There’s a breathy chuckle, “all right fine.”

 

The video ends and Katie opens up her plan, there’s color coded spreadsheets and everything. “In order for me to find this guy I’ll need to access the Garrison’s desert property.” Colleen holds up a hand, “Katie, give me a second please, you just provided evidence that no only is alien life real, not only might my husband and son been abducted by them, but that my son might have been spending months befriending one.” Katie nods, Colleen takes a moment, about five minutes to stare at the screen and organize her thoughts, “you want to try and find him.” Katie nods, “that will involve scouring the desert, possibly for hours at a time, probably for many days in a row.” Katie winces, her face setting into one of revulsion for a minute before she straightens her posture squares her shoulders, and nods again.

 

“All right, I suppose I really should help out then,” Katie smiles and lets out the breath she’d been holding. “However,” she stiffens again, “if you find him, if he’s real, and still hanging around, I’m meeting him.” _Okay, yeah, that’s fair_ she thinks to herself.

****

 

 

Taking a deep breath and a moment to adjust his (her) glasses, Pidge strides through the doors of the Garrison. “First day of class and my start towards finding exactly what’s going on.” Her mom had indeed chosen to help her. Pidge Gunderson not only exists in the system but has top marks and a recommendation from professor Holt that got lost in the system. It’s all more than enough to get her where she needs to be. She has a half hour before the postings get put up, which is just enough time to unpack and check out her dorm. She’s unsure of whether or not her mom managed to pull some strings or it was just some insane luck of the draw, but her dorm is private. She doesn’t need to worry about sharing it with anyone.

 

The space is small, one loft bed and desk, two cabinets and a small alcove that could, if one was inclined towards generosity, call a closet. Throwing her bag on the bed the first thing she does is take out her rig, it’s a set up that’s capable of cracking and privately piggybacking off of the Garrison’s network and setting up her data extraction program. Luckily the Garrison’s tech is more powerful than hers, it’s difficult to get a signal in the dorm but if she can here then she can certainly grab any feeds from Kerberos if she gets to the roof. Her clothes are in the drawers, her hoodie in the closet she makes a face in the mirror, the Garrison uniform striking her as somewhat traitorous too her family. It’s also just kind of hideous, orange and gray. Still it’s the best she’s got.

 

Making her way to the posting board for her unit she has to bite back a wordless noise of disgust the crowds around the boards are huge. “Alright, I made fighter class! Kiss my ass Griffin.” There’s a loud kid at the front, okay maybe kid’s not a good word he’s probably at least a year older than her but still. The person next to him is even taller and more broad. He turns to the dark skinned person who’s nervously fidgeting, “and you’re my engineer.” He starts and looks over his friend’s shoulder at the board, “is that like… Something I can do from the ground?” The first kid makes a face, “our communications officer is someone named Pidge Gunderson.” It takes her a minute to register her alias “ah, that’s me!” She says walking up them.

 

He immediately starts talking to her about something, but she notices Iverson speaking to a major nearby, “I want that fixed, our security was bypassed, and by a little girl no less.” The major salutes, and suddenly she’s very aware of Iverson stalking towards her group, she salutes along with her team. He spares a glance at her and she finds her heart racing, but all he says is, “wrong hand cadet,” before walking off. Letting out her breath she lowers her hand then she’s aware of her team loudmouth yammering at her. “Hello, Earth to Pidge, you hear me?” She looks at him, probably not good to ignore her crew, “uh, sorry, I was lost, what?” He sighs dramatically, “you know, party, drinks, girls.” Oh that’s what this was about, “sorry I have work to do.” As she stalks off she can hear him give an affronted “man what’s his problem.” She’s glad to have fooled them but, it wasn’t exactly hard to so whatever.

 

The first night is spent on the roof, she’s tempted to turn her gaze straight to Kerberos, but her current goal is a bit closer to home. She plugs in the flashdrive her mom gave her, apparently the samples taken from the crash that Matt seemed to believe brought the ghoul to earth were charged with an isotope. One that with a little finagling she and her mom built a device to track. Garrison towers pumping her range and she’s got a narrowed down location out in the desert. Where Rover went down. Which, yeah she could probably have guessed that.

****

 

 

The scrublands, hot, dry, filled with prickly desert flora, rattlesnakes, dust, and heat. Also probably a collection of stinging venomous arthropods. In short, the outdoors at arguably their least pleasant, and Pidge has never been what could be called fond of the outdoors as a general rule anyway, because camping was her dad and brother’s thing, and even then it was a once a year sort of thing, a special event where she got a bit of peace and quiet, or in the case of the last one, a night of toasting marshmallows and then a hunt for a cryptid. Because her brother has all the luck the cryptid turned out to be real. Seriously Matt, what the hell? Like even ignoring all of the gall that it would take for him to have kept a full fledged alien from her. His evidence? A third hand account, glitching trail cams, a lost drone, and a photo of some eyeshine. Not the most convincing stack of evidence. And yet, it was enough to lead him to the desert, to the a real cryptid. One she’s out here tracking. Or more accurately she notes frowning up at the plateau, going to get herself killed hunting. Heat stroke is at the top of the possible death right now. No wonder Matt had such a prominent tan by Kerberos.

 

“So, option A.) try and scale the thousand foot ninety degree angle cliff, or option B.) pick a random cave, try my hand at spelunking for the first time ever and hope for the best.” Crossing her arms she taps her foot and starts to consider all her options, none of which strike her as particularly appealing. Instead she decides to do a circuit around the plateau to judge it’s dimensions and her access. Not at all because she’s avoiding trying to make this decision. Checking her device again she frowns, the isotope signature is coming from in the plateau and thus she has to figure out the way into it. She’s about to give up and try to find if a Garrison survey managed to map the place when a voice shakes her from her thoughts. “Matt?” The voice is rough, and likely not often used, but it’s one she recognizes, she turns to find the cryptid, clearly she didn’t consider all options, because it hadn’t occurred to her that her quarry might come to her.

 

He goes rigid and she can swear his mane bristles once he realizes that she isn’t in point of fact her brother. Despite what the haircut might have done to her. He looks ready to bolt, and nope, not having that, “wait, are you Kaathe?” He stops, and his eyes narrow with deep suspicion, and suddenly, her prying into her brother’s notation on him seems a lot like spying. Her brother didn’t go into detail, probably because he didn’t know any, but he’d mentioned a couple things that Kaathe likely would view as personal. “I’m Pidge,” she cautiously extends her hand. He snorts a bit, “yeah, I kinda figured,” but after a moment of hesitation he takes her hand and shakes it. Alright looks like Matt’s been giving out some Earth etiquette one on one. She can work with that, then he shakes his head in fond exasperation it’s a tone she’s heard several times in her brothers notes. She’s both kind of pleased to already be ranking a solid Matt in the alien’s esteem and frustrated to be ranking a solid Matt in poor life choices, “this is what you meant by ‘drastic measures?’”

 

Wait, what? What? The, what the fuck? “How do you?” The face of the crytpid twists into an expression that is an incredibly obvious suppressed smirk. Her brother was definitely a bad influence, “you, you’re,” she’s been talking to the cryptid, on the cryptid enthusiast server, for weeks, months, she told him about her alien abduction theory, which means that she doesn’t need to explain anything to him. So yay for that. But at the same time. “You bastard, you rat bastard!” She charges the cryptid who side steps and then leaps to the top of a tall bolder and sits out of reach. “You have to come down sometime.” He settles on the rock and continues smirking, yep he’s been trained by her brother, she knows that look, “go ahead and wait, according to Matt I process water more efficiently you’ll overheat before me.” Damn him he’s right.


	9. Crossing Threads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I am juggling one too many things don't judge me.

The drop ship lurches beneath them as they enter hyperdrive. Matt gulps back the brief surge of nausea the resistance’s ships have a smoother ride than the Garrison’s ship, which wasn’t even fit with hyperdrive, but the jump into and out of hyperspace is still murder on the stomach. Galra ships the jump is barely noticeable but they have the resources for decent thermodynamic dampeners the bastards. Seriously evil fascist empire spanning time and space is one thing, but evil fascist empire spanning time and space that withholds basic shock absorption technology is a bridge too far. Still, he’ll take the resistance over the empire any day. At least here he’s a full member by being a full member, and not being galra, which yeah he gets it but he’s still bitter about. Though the nausea might also be because of adrenaline. This is his first mission for the resistance, apparently they are raiding a galactic hub, one that’s been locked behind at least a dozen different layers of security. Which isn’t typical of the hubs. He’s so proud of his programs, thank you Kaathe for letting me spend time with your ship’s systems. Combine the ability of galra tech with his skills and those picked up from his sister, he’s managed to break some truly complex encryptions.

 

“We’re approaching the hub, prepare to disembark,” Matt triple checks his suit, the hub’s sensors will almost certainly be enough to track the rust bucket, his fond nickname for Olia’s ship. She found the name both infuriating and amusing, she reminds him of Kaathe, who is himself a scary good pilot. He kind of hopes Olia’s not in the ‘galra are racially predisposed to evil camp’ because putting those two in a race or listening to them talk flight would be amazing and should be done posthaste. The second lurch hits the ship as they return fully to real space. Taking a breath Matt and Te-osh drop out of the ship and immediately activate their thrusters. Moving quietly to the access panel and plugs his new and improved mobile cracking device, one fit into the bracer of his suit. Armor, mobile computer, and space suit all in one, if space wasn’t a nightmare warzone then it would be a fantasia of amazing technology and the best thing ever.

 

“All right Phi squad here,” Te-osh’s voice echoes through the communications network, “we get in and get out does everyone remember their roles? Javeeno squad sound off.” There’s a brief silence then a deep warbling voice belonging to Brog the Javeeno leader “Javeeno squad here, we’re in position and ready to secure whatever you find.” Te-osh nods, “affirmative, Drive squadron you ready?” Another pause then Olia’s voice, “Drive squad here, ship is warm and ready for immediate evac, just signal me when you’re ready.” Matt nods the access airlock releases and they are in. “Alright we’re in, we’ll make our way to the computer hub and try to find out what here’s worth taking.” Stealing from the empire a truly risky proposition. One that would only be on the table because the security around the base implied something the empire considers valuable enough to hide.

****

 

 

The standoff lasts about five minutes, “alright, fine, just come down here, I’ll forgive you lurking on the server.” It does make a little bit of sense, after all he’s friends with Matt and it was his most common haunt. Also Kaathe seems to be like enough of a little shit to do that. “And the drone,” she narrows her eyes, righteous fury building again, “that was you?!” She hisses, he looks unrepentant, “no, my ship has an EMF emitter, messes with most Earth tech.” Okay fine, that at least makes sense, she’s still mad, “I’ll consider forgiving Rover if you promise to help me get Matt back.” He blinks taken aback, “you have a plan?” It’s an actual question. She nods, “mostly at the information gathering stage, but you have a ship right?” He nods, “yeah, but it’s short range, unless we have a definite destination I don’t know if I’ll be able to do much. It’s also only got a little over half its fuel left.” She nods at that, universe is a big place, “you saying you don’t know anywhere close by?”

 

He hops down in front of her, “nope, I’m here because it’s out of the way, the galra don’t have any local bases as far as I know.” She looks at him, “the galra, that who has them?” Kaathe nods, “probably, they’re who had me.” Then his ears droop, “I’m galra by the way.” She manages to keep her face neutral, she’d heard about that from Matt’s notes, “yeah, I know, Matt left some recordings on his computer.” The alien frowns deeply, “I told him those were a bad idea.” She smiles at him, there’s a mean streak to the smile, “well, no worries then, I used his security to nuke his computer.” A paraphrase of the actual truth but whatever he doesn’t need to know that. She holds out the flashdrive, “this is all that’s left, help me with my search and it’s yours.”

 

He hesitates before taking it, “I would anyway,” she arcs a brow at him. He actually growls, there’s real anger in his expression not simple wariness, “I know what they’re like better than anyone, and he’s my friend too.” Which, okay yeah, she probably should have expected that. She holds out her hands in a placating gesture, “alright, alright, fair enough. You’ll help me then?” He nods, “yeah, like I said I don’t know how much I can help, but if you can get me a destination I can get us there. If need be we can steal a more long range ship.” She leans back, “how criminal, also ‘we?’” He shrugs, “well I don’t give too much of a fuck about their feelings, and I’m gonna go out on a limb and say if you, the most anti-outdoors human in the world decided to hike out here to find me then you probably won’t be staying behind.” She smirks, “true, and smart move, because if you tried I’d find my way up there then I’d hurt you.” He winces, “I believe it.” She puffs up a little, “just what has Matt been saying about me?!”

 

“Car battery incident,” is all he says in reply. “That was completely justified!” She, might have overreacted in that situation but she’ll never admit that. “ANYWAY! I have the means of listening in on their conversations, so I might get a destination of some sort.”

 

Kaathe nods, “alright, keep me appraised? You know how to contact me.” She rolls her eyes, “two other things, first my mom knows about you don’t give me that face I was kind of obligated to tell her given all the everything.” He sighs, “fair, let me guess, now that you know one hundred percent I’m real you want to bring her out here?” She nods, he sighs, “yeah, sure, Blue’s gonna kill me if I say no.” That is an odd response but then thinking back to their conversations, so are most of his responses, though in fairness to that, he’s an alien, an alien with trauma so whatever. “Second, Matt took notes on your ship but this,” she pulls up the picture of he and Matt with Blue in the background, “does not look like your ship.”

****

 

 

Te-osh and he have to separate so that she can keep an eye on the security station and loop the cameras and he can make his way into the archives. The wide array of banks quietly humming with their helix processors working to keep track of everything going into and out of the base makes the whole thing eerie. Galra have good vision even in low light, Kaathe was not unique in that, so most of their places are kept dark. This however is also quiet, quieter than normal galra bases, due probably to the low staff count, and the stillness to their sentries, the halls are patrolled but the two guarding the access terminal are standing perfectly still. It does mean that they haven’t been detected, but the quiet unnerves him, he rounds the banks and prepares a shutdown device, he hits one and then takes out the other with his staff. Working quickly to clone it’ signature and set it to a loop so it can’t report it’s going dark to the main server. Wouldn’t mean much taking it out if another one came to investigate while he’s working.

 

He plugs into the server, “I’m in,” it takes a couple of minutes until he’s able to find anything of note, “this is a refining facility for quintessence, tell Javeeno squad that there’s a depot in the third level of the facility. Most of the power cells have been moved off planet but they do have the reserves in that room.” There’s a quiet affirmative, “I’m going to try and get anything else here, they keep records of the ships that pass through here, and there’s a lot of traffic between here and Central Command.” Another acknowledgment, and a ‘be careful.’ Working through the layers of security and encryption is time consuming but eventually he manages to get something, most of the quintessence is fuel, there’s a couple canisters of medical class that are listed as belonging to Haggar, refined and transported under the direction of ‘Macidus.’ “Interesting,” he hums, because there’s another commander, one not bound to or from central but the outer territories, one who’s also given a frequent supply of fuel and medical quintessence so not out of favor with the empire, but given a position that would be seen as less than glamorous. “Hey, Te-osh, who’s Sendak? He’s listed here as being in charge of something called Voltron: Red and seems to be a pretty big hot shot if the amount of resources he’s allocated here is any indication.”

  
Te-osh is quiet but Matt can hear a small trill that means he’s surprised her. Before she can answer though he has to dodge a strike from a galra lieutenant that almost manages to take his head off. “Fuck” he hisses, and dodges sharply again to avoid the energy sword, his communication jammer is working so he at least doesn’t have to worry about reinforcements, though this guy seems to be pretty good at killing him on his own.

****

 

 

First day of actual class goes easily enough, she can totally see what Matt was complaining about because her computer science courses are boring as tar. Checking her schedule and map she has to make her way to the student cafeteria, which is on the complete other side of the building. Because, of fucking course it is. Okay maybe she’s a little less bored and a little more irritable, there are some points of code she has to intentionally get wrong, she can’t let on how much she knows. She can’t afford for the Garrison to keep an eye on her. She’s wrapped up enough in her own head that someone manages to get close enough to sling their arms over her shoulder. “Sup man,” the lanky person on her team says popping his ‘p.’

 

She makes a face while she tries to remember his name, “hi, uh, team?” She tries because the quiet guy is with him so maybe she can get away with it. No such luck because lanky boy’s face switches to annoyed, he points to himself and with obnoxiously obvious and drawn out pronunciation says “Lance,” then points at the big guy, “Hunk.”

 

“I’m going to translate that as,” she points at Hunk, “Hunk,” then to Lance, “Obnoxious.” Lance’s face flipping from smug to irritation is its own reward. “Anyway,” Lance says clearly trying to change the subject “it’s lunch so why don’t you join us at our table teammate.” She clearly doesn’t have a choice since she’s manhandled through the double doors to the cafeteria and into a vacant seat.

 

“Okay, Lance” she says his name with the same drawn out excessive slowness he’d used earlier, “I am giving you your one and only warning, do that again and I will hurt you.” Lance has his phone out and is playing some game on it, “uh huh, sure you will tiny.”

 

Pidge chooses to ignore him in favor of getting some work done while she eats lunch, “so we have flight training next with Iverson?” Lance puffs up his chest, “yes indeed, and I will be your pilot today, which is great for you guys because I am going to be the next Takashi Shirogane.”

 

Pidge smiles a bit and shakes her head, while he’s distracted she gets into his phone and shuts off his game, and deletes his most recent save file. Lance snarls at his phone and she looks up at him. “Next time you manhandle me I’m going to delete the entire app.” Lance looks at her mouth hanging open, she narrows her eyes at him, “before you say anything remember that I can and will e-mail your search history to your mother too.” Having established her dominance she finishes her meal and gets ready for flight training.

 

Flight training teaches Pidge many things, one that Lance is awful, two Hunk gets motion sick, three Hunk’s motion sickness is exacerbated by stress, and four she never wants to have flight training after lunch again. They crash, they crash hard. “Wow looks like you really are the next Shirogane,” says someone in the crowd. Pidge kicks them in the shins and Lance looks like he’s about to throw a punch.

 

Iverson steps in, “clean out the engineering box and hit the showers you three.” Then he looks at the cadet that spoke, “since you think you’re so much better than the best the Garrison produced you can show us next. If you crash then you’re on dish duty for the rest of the month.” That ends that particular conversation, Pidge gives Iverson a look one he returns with enough of a raised brow to be a challenge. One for once she decides against rising to.

****

 

 

Matt rolls out of the way of the lieutenant’s blade which comes down on the access terminal he’d been using. Bringing his staff up is the only thing that keeps his head on his shoulders because the galra is much taller than he is with a much longer reach. “Command, come in this is Lieutenant Vrock we have an intruder.” He snarls when all he gets is silence. Matt takes a swipe at his legs, he dances backwards snarl turned towards Matt his lips actually pulling away from his fangs. “Pfft, Kaathe’s scarier than you when I take the last cookie,” he jabs forward then brings his staff down on the galra’s foot.

 

Matt rolls backwards to avoid another swing of the sword but the galra just grins, hooks his foot into a cable and yanks it taught into an improvised trip line that Matt backs into. Like an idiot he thinks, he will also never give Te-osh crap for giving him crap about tripping in training because her lessons on how to fall saves, at the very least, his eye as the energy sword carves a long vertical line across his cheek.

 

Burning pain blooms outward from the wound and he scrambles backwards as fast as he can. Pinned against a computer bank he looks up at the imperial lieutenant poised to kill him.

 

He’s not sure who’s more surprised by the second blade that shows up by going through the lieutenant’s chest, him or the lieutenant. Before the lieutenant can recover he’s yanked backwards by his assailant who spins him around in one fluid movement removes his blade, not by simply pulling it out but pulling up. The lieutenant’s face never stops looking dumbfounded even as it splits in half and he falls over.

 

Matt makes several keen observations about his savior, one he’s extremely tall, bigger than the lieutenant he just killed, probably bigger than Kaathe. Second thing is the mask and dark suit that renders him nearly invisible in the ship’s low light. Last is the blade itself which shines for a moment and then transforms back into a small dagger. A dagger, he notices as it gets put back in a sheath at his rescuer’s side, which has a familiar glowing rune. Before he can stop himself he dazedly says “I didn’t know his knife could do that.”

 

The masked intruder whips around to face him again, he flinches, “what did you just say?” Then there’s an alarm going off and Te-osh in his ear, “Matt the team grabbing the power cells tripped an alarm on their way out, we have to leave now. The other is already gone. Matt pouts, “uh, yeah Te-osh I copy, I’ll meet you at the airlock.”

 

Once they’re back on their ship Te-osh wastes no time grilling him about his fight in the computer core. Sighing he gives her the trimmed down version. “Yes he was big, yes I’m sure he wasn’t one of ours, no I’ve never seen that kind of mask or get up.” He decides to leave out the knife until he knows more about it.

****

 

 

Watching the rebel ship flee the refinery with its stolen goods a second ship takes off, following them with it’s advanced stealth capabilities. Its pilot deftly weaving around debris and into hyperdrive after them. Kolivan notes with a small amount of approval their ion trail is rapidly decaying, by the time the Empire has scrambled their fighters the trail will be long cold. Still that a rebel recognizing his blade is concerning. He needs to establish who this person is, what they know, and if need be eliminate the potential leak.

****

 

 

Matt sighs deeply once he’s safely in the depths of the rebel base. Te-osh applies an anti-infection bandage to his wound. “I would have preferred you summon help,” she chides him. “The galra are vicious and strong, they have more reach than you.” He glances around his room, it’s small but comfortable, he shares with Te-osh because space is at a premium. There’s nothing in the room that can’t be snatched up and fled with at a moments notice. He hesitates a minute before choosing to broach the topic. “Te-osh, what are your thoughts on the galra? I mean as a people, not the empire, I can guess about the empire.” Te-osh gives him a look that he’s seen on his mother, he’s often asked inappropriate questions ruled as he is by curiosity, “have the central prisoners been talking again?”

 

“No, just,” he doesn’t know how to answer this, sighing he just says, “I know a galra, I met him before I left my world.” She is looking at him fully now, “You told me that your world had not met anyone beyond your system.” Matt nods, “that’s true of our planet, but I know someone who’s in hiding from the empire.” She looks concerned at this, he knows that look, “he was a prisoner of Haggar’s, just a kid too.”

  
Te-osh looks up at this alarmed, “you are certain?” Matt nods, “yeah, he’s super cagey about his time inside, and yeah, though he doesn’t look quite like the galra I’ve seen.” Te-osh nods, “lot of half-blooded out on the edges of the empire, if his parentage was something deemed interesting.” She shakes her head and makes a noise that he’s only heard a couple of times. She must be really angry. “The witch and the empire, taking children, I could see it.”

 

Matt looks at her, “I want to know more about him, about the galra. He doesn’t like to talk about the galra, even though he is one.” She leans back, “I can tell you that half-blood galra are not well treated by the empire, if he was taken by the witch and the empire as a child, then… it was likely very difficult. What is he like to have earned your caution to even speak of him?”

 

Matt thinks for a bit, “mostly he’s just a good friend of mine, he’s the one who taught me how to fight and hunt.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste and Te-osh makes a the noise that he’s learned is laughter. “I think that I should stop talking about this. Kaathe, he’s a good guy and he hates being talked about when he’s not in the room. I’m going to guess it’s because of the whole only alien in the world thing, but… He’s really awkward and I worry about him being stuck by himself.” Te-osh nods, “well you have a good chance to think on it patrol starts in five doboshes.”

 

Matt groans a bit but smiles and goes to leave, “yeah, yeah, I’ll see you in a couple vargas.” She hums slightly, “Matt, many here would not tell you to trust a galra, they would tell you he is a monster. That it’s in his blood. If he has earned your trust though, that even after everything you’ve seen you have this loyalty, then do not let what they say bother you.”

 

Matt just smiles and salutes her before spinning on his heel and marching to start his patrol.

****

 

 

The Garrison is a military based organization, but one motivated by science first and foremost. Pidge doesn’t think it’s as much fun as it could be as she continues her marathon of _Stargate,_ Kaathe on the other end complaining a bit about the unrealistic aspect of a scrappy group of humans fighting a millennia old empire with few major consequences. Tossing a piece of popcorn in the air and catching it in her mouth she considers his arguments for a moment.

 

CryptidKat: You have popcorn don’t you?

Greensunszenith: Maaaaybe~

CryptidKat: >:c

CryptidKat: I miss popcorn.

 

Huh, of course Matt introduced him to popcorn. What else has her brother introduced him too.

 

Greensunszenith: Has Matt shown you pizza?

CryptidKat: Tacos too

Greensunszenith: Nice, we’re totally doing taco tuesdays now

CryptidKat: I wont say no to that.

Greensunszenith: You’re my teal’c but you know way too much about Earth, Matt has ruined you for me.

CryptidKat: Wouldn’t that make me Matt’s Teal’c?

Greensunszenith: I need you to rethink what you just said to me.

CryptidKat: I don’t get it.

Greensunszenith: Nvr mind, you have not been ruined.

Greensunszenith: Fuck it’s cold, how do you stand the desert? It’s hot in the day and freezing at night fuck the outdoors.

CryptidKat: I like it, go inside if you don’t.

Greensunszenith: Ugh, of course you like it your an alien with ridiculous physical stats

Greensunszenith: Also I can’t go inside, I’m monitoring alien signals

 

Tossing another piece of popcorn in the air her program finally dings something, she starts examining the signals, cleaning out the static and sending it to Kaathe. The chime distracts her enough for the kernel to bounce of her nose instead of landing in her mouth.

 

Greensunszenith: Got a ping, you speak galran right?

CryptidKat: Yeah, one sec.

 

It takes a minute she starts trying to find any cleaner signals but doesn’t have a great deal of luck.

 

CryptidKat: Alright, sounds like there was an intrusion in some sort of fuel depot and some big shot’s going to try and purge the area it happened in.

CryptidKat: Sounds like it was a long way from here, the group here is instructed to keep searching for something called ‘Voltron.’

Greensunszenith: Yeah that word pops up a lot, I’m guessing that it’s a name then?

CryptidKat: Yeah, wait, Blue’s talking to me.

CryptidKat: She says they wont find us before her pilot but she does say we need to be ready to go as soon as that happens.

Greensunszenith: we?

CryptidKat: Are you saying you don’t intend to hunt the cosmos for Matt? She says you’re important but I could have told you that.

 

Ah the other end of this, Blue, she’s concerned about Kaathe’s sanity considering hearing voices is not a good sign. She had to trust her brother’s faith in Kaathe since Blue’s been talking to him since they’ve known each other. Blue also seems to be fairly harmless, but still, there’s something about this that sets her on edge. There wasn’t even an entry about Blue in Matt’s notes, Kaathe said that she’s important and needs to be kept hidden until the person she’s waiting for shows up. She’d asked what he meant and he said he’d show Pidge and Colleen at the same time, then he can go into full detail.

 

Good, because patience has totally been her strong suit. Not. Instead she’s decided to clean up the dialogue add subtitles via Kaathes translations, though he did warn her that some galran words and sounds do not translate at all, duly warned she sends it off to her mother. Packing up her equipment she heads back inside, tomorrow is a low key day sure but it’s still an early one which is going to be hell. Why does the Garrison start early? Because it is run by sadistic lizard people that is why.

****

 

 

Matt takes a deep breath of the cool night air of the world the resistance base was located on, he shivers a bit. Checks his pulse pistol, communication device, and his staff, “alright, this is Space Cowboy,” yes he did pick his own handle, no he is not apologizing, “all clear at gate three.” Swinging his staff over his shoulder he starts whistling and marches off on his patrol route.

 

He is about half way through his route into the canyons when he gets a shiver and the feeling of being watched, it’s almost comforting, except that Kaathe’s not here, which means one of two things. First a large local predator is lurking somewhere out in the brush. Or an intruder found the base. Either way he readies himself for an attack, pulling out his pistol and making sure that if the attack comes from too close a range that he has easy access to his staff. Slowly making his way through the canyon he sends off a message, “this is Space Cowboy, checking in with no problems, but I am getting a serious case of the heebie jeebies so heads up on that.

 

There’s quiet then the other end, “can you speak common for once please.” Matt sighs, “I think I’m being watched, I’ll check in again in half a varga if it’s nothing, if I don’t check in then assume that I have run into something and died valiantly.” There’s a pause then the other end says, “roger that Space Cowboy.”

 

“You have good instincts,” the voice behind him makes him jump with a sound that if asked later he would assure you was very manly and not at all scared. Startled maybe but not scared. The masked guy from earlier is standing there sizing him up. “I have a weapon and I’m not afraid to use it,” the stranger crosses his arms, “I am unconcerned.”

 

“I also have a panic button and will use it when afraid,” the other stiffens a bit at that, so not afraid to fight him but afraid to be exposed. “Glad to know where I rate on the threat scale,” he deadpans. The masked intruder holds out his hands, “I am merely here to talk.”

 

Matt’s turn to be difficult, which is good because difficult is his comfort zone, he puts the gun away but crosses his arms. “Mask first, I only trust masks in the field.” The stranger doesn’t back down either, “you would not trust me either way.”

 

“Possibly true, but I’ve got a good track record when it comes to trusting aliens that save my life,” he grins when he says this. The other doesn’t respond so Matt decides to poke, “is it because you’re galra?” It’s a bluff, one made at a stretch the knife design is the only thing he’s seen that connects this guy to his own galra but it’s still something.

 

The figure managing to tense further is answer enough, the distorted voice sighs but the mask fades and yep galra. “I would be interested to know how you know this much, and which of my soldiers is giving out information.” Matt shrugs, “I don’t think Kaathe’s one of yours,” then he looks at the galra. The guy relaxes slightly, “the name is unfamiliar to me, beyond an old galra legend.”

 

Matt leans in and smiles, “tell me? I’ll tell you any non-sensitive information about what I know if you do.” The galra frowns at him, okay, he’s already frowning but he doesn’t seem to be taking him seriously, rude, “who is this Kaathe.” Matt pouts, “I don’t want to talk about him too much behind his back, and I’ve been doing that a lot tonight. Frankly,” he holds his hands up like he is just completely stymied but would love to help, really he would, “I trust Te-osh way more than you.”

 

“If he stole one of our blades, or killed a member I wonder why you should be so loyal.” Matt glowers at him, “he saved my life, he’s been put through hell by the empire, and he has given me no reason not to trust him glowing knife aside.” The other stares Matt down, “I am Kolivan, I am a member of a resistance, one different from your own, secrecy is the only way we survive the empire, so I cannot say more. Please, I would still ask your help in this.”

 

There’s a beat of silence, “he said the knife came from his mom, he’s like eighteen okay? He’s just a kid, probably a half galra and already he’s survived being Haggar’s prisoner.” He stares down the galra, “he was Haggar’s prisoner?” Matt nods, “yeah, and now he lives in a cave on Earth avoiding the Empire.” Kolivan makes a noise, “one of our agents was on Earth, she was trying to keep Zarkon’s forces away from something very important that may have been on your home world.”

 

Matt perks up at this, “you guys know about Blue?” Kolivan is looking at him with scrutiny again, “what do you know about it?” Matt curses inwardly, “yeah, Kaathe lives with it, he’s been trying to keep it safe.” Which Matt might have just screwed up, fuck, Kolivan doesn’t leave though, he walks up to Matt and hands him a device, “this is very important, and you have helped us, please, know that the Blade of Marmora is with you.”

 

“Wait,” he doesn’t know what to say but, “there were two others captured with me. If you are raiding the empire, do you know anything about them?” Kolivan hesitates then sighs, “we have an agent near the Champion.” Shiro, Matt grabs Kolivan’s arm panic in his eyes, “can you help him? Or give us his location? Please...” Kolivan removes his hand, “if what you say about the lion, and Zarkon’s presence in your system is true, then we will need to act. I will consult with my agent in Haggar’s labs, that is all I can promise.”

 

Matt nods, he’s heard enough about Haggar to know what kind of risk Kolivan might be taking. Kolivan gets a wry look, “we do not often reveal ourselves, when we do being galra is usually enough to earn enmity.” Matt smirks, “well, I met Kaathe way before the empire, so you guys started off on the right foot, I’m just glad to know there’s more than just him out here.” Kolivan nods when Matt’s communicator hisses to life, “this is your check in Space Cowboy you okay?” Matt jumps, and answers, “uh yeah all cool here.” Kolivan uses this as his chance to bow out.

****

 

 

Kaathe is wringing his hands and pacing, because he’s met all of two humans since his capture by Haggar. He’s still nervous about the notion of meeting a new human, even one who helped raise both Matt and Pidge who have been good to him. He also needs to keep his promise because either your word is good or worth nothing. Still it’s a lot to take in because this is going to be twice as many people as he’s dealt with in… years? Yeah, probably years. Blue wants to encourage him that like Matt and Pidge, this is the right thing and it will be better for him overall. It still feels like a mistake, like he’s inviting disaster, though disaster probably already arrived in the form of Pidge so maybe he’s just overreacting.

 

Eventually his messenger dings to tell him the Pidge is outside with her mom and the moment of truth has arrived. Kaathe sighs, grabs his coat, and goes out to face the music.

****

 

Colleen would consider herself an open minded woman, she is also a woman of convictions. So when her daughter said she was disusing herself as a boy to infiltrate the Galaxy Garrison to find information on her missing family she’d okayed the decision. She still wasn’t sure that the photo or notes that her son made was anything more than a gag that he’d ultimately decided to shelve until Kerberos was done.

 

When Katie told her she found the alien in question and that he’d agreed to meet with the Holt matriarch she’d been, well skeptical would be the polite word. Her daughter gets out of the car turns to one of the caves and shouts, “Kaathe getcher butt out here!” Then turns to her mother and says, “he doesn’t like people so I need to give him a bit of a kick in the pants.” She’s a little worried about this, that worry manages to fly out of her mind along with every other thought in her head.

 

Because he’s real, he’s leaving his cave, grumbling about her daughter being a slave driver, tall, purple, coat, real. He stops next to Pidge and just kind of looks sheepish, like he’s not at all sure what he should be doing with himself. “Uh, hi. I’m Kaathe.”

 

She responds by poking him in the chest then looking around for seams or a zipper, he looks at Pidge alarmed, “you didn’t say there was going to be touching, no one mentioned touching!” He runs away from her having apparently decided her daughter was the safe shield to put between her and himself.

 

“You’re real, you’ve been out here all along,” then she hits a realization she hadn’t fully considered before and her voice became slightly outraged, “my son made first contact and didn’t bother telling me!”

  
Kaathe peeks out from behind Pidge, “I did ask him not to.” She puts her hands on her hips, “he’s still grounded as soon as he gets back.”

 

“I’m pretty sure he’s eighteen and you can’t legally do that,” Kaathe supplies, Pidge is chewing on her lip to try and keep herself from laughing.”

 

“I’m his mother, he’ll never be too old for me not to ground.” Then she stares at him fully, “you haven’t been eating nearly enough. Katie get the stove out of the jeep, and help me set up.” Aliens are real, she’s currently face to face with one, she can handle this, no problem.

 

She’s completely out of her depth, but damned if she’s going to show any of that to Katie or a visitor from the stars. Even if it makes the theory that her husband and son were abducted more plausible.


	10. Crash Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, Nanowrimo come and gone, the last chapter is here, been a wild ride my friends eh? Also don't judge Shiro too harshly the boy is trying his best.

Ulaz is one of the most proficient medical technicians in either the blades or the empire, he prides himself on being completely meticulous and planning everything down to the last detail and letter. It’s the reason he’s managed to survive in Haggar’s personal team for longer than a movement. It’s also why Haggar chose him to be on her team despite him not being a druid.

 

Her right hand druid is the one he’s worked with the most, if the druid has a name he hasn’t learned it. It usually makes a simple casual demand of him or consults him on the technical aspects of their experiments. Otherwise it is not social, it does not speak, it works, and it leaves. Haggar is only there for major events when they have something of worth to show otherwise she remains hands off something Ulaz is infinitely grateful for.

 

He’s also grateful that his mission is about to come to an end, he’s less happy about the means or reason. The Champion, Haggar’s most recent fascination, he’s been brought in, fitted with a powerful and advanced combat prosthetic. Apparently the next step is to have the druid muddle his mind and memories until he’s an adequate soldier for Haggar’s schemes. Kolivan wants him to break out the Champion, apparently the Blue lion is on his home planet and Kolivan wants it kept out of the empire’s hands. How Kolivan came to be so certain of this information, or that the Champion will somehow help them achieve that goal he wouldn’t know. He’s learned not to question Kolivan’s judgment too thoroughly because their leader is often obscure and obtuse in his ways. He’s also usually right.

 

The Champion has resisted them since he arrived, the procedure almost killed him, he and the other two technicians enter. The druid is doing something to his mind, likely continuing to chip away at his memories and identity. The Champion groans in pain when something happens, the druid’s entire body goes rigid as though startled. No one voices their thoughts, something’s wrong which will displease Haggar, which is exceedingly dangerous. “Perform maintenance, I will return shortly.”

 

Ulaz has to act quickly, the bombs in his medical bag still need to be planted to cover he and the Champion’s escape. “Haven’t you taken enough from me?” The question is angry, but also despairing, the empire has taken too much from this man, but, it desires even more, a price the Champion will never be able to truly pay.

 

He acts quickly, pulling out his knife kicking one technician into the wall and stabbing the other in his initial assault then finishing the stunned one off with his second attack. His luxite knife makes short work of the Champion’s bonds, “hold still I’m here to get you out. Can you walk?”

 

The Champion stares at him stunned for a moment before nodding, “yeah, just, help me up.”

****

 

 

Shiro crouches down in the corner behind a bend in the hallway, the sentries patrolling the hallway make him freeze. He’s learned their patterns, it took three failed attempts, many beatings, two prisoners killed in response. His overseers learned that they could force him to do their bidding by threatening the inmates. Why lose their precious Champion when a few ‘useless’ slaves will do to keep him in check?

 

The galra view all life as expendable to their greater cause of strength and power, he doesn’t want to think of a whole species as evil. That this galra is helping him. It’s more likely that Haggar is testing his rehabilitation, to see if he’s adjusted to the arm well enough. Well he’ll show her how well he’s adjusted. He’ll kill as many guards as he needs to if it means freedom. He’ll take the arm’s weapons to his own neck before he’ll go back to her clutches, already he can feel his memories blend together, arena fights, escape attempts. Whatever the druid did to him was slow burning, but he can tell it’s working.

 

He reaches the hangar, he slays both sentries, he uses movements he doesn’t remember learning, but they work. He knows that his memories are blurring further, Matt and Sam, he tries to hold onto them. If he can then he might be able to defeat Haggar’s poison in his mind. He knows they were with him, knows they were separated from him. “I didn’t hurt Matt,” he finds himself repeating like a litany, “I saved him, he was rescued.” The guards were very angry about it. Shiro was proud of his friend for escaping.

 

“I didn’t- ergh” he tries to remember what he didn’t do, tries to remember what happened to Matt it just hurts. The galra is there next to a ship, an escape pod, “come, this will take you to Earth, I planted explosives to cover our escape.” Then he pulls out a small bundle and hands it to Shiro, “this is all of your effects I could get.”

 

“Come with,” this is real, it’s truly real, this guys is helping him, he can’t leave him alone, he can’t leave him to die. The technician smiles at him, “if you find the Blue lion of Voltron, it’s on your world, I have placed coordinates in your arm, if I don’t make it out tell whoever is there Ulaz sent you. Remember the Blade of Marmora is with you.” An explosion shakes the ship and Shiro loses his balance. Ulaz shoves him forward hard.

 

He hits the ground and sees the ship doors seal and pressurize he can feel the ship launch eventually he passes out the memory of his escape blurring and fading. Home, he knows he’s going home, he doesn’t know how, but he knows.

****

 

 

Matt lays in the darkness of his room he can hear people laughing outside, movement of the base, it’s similar to the Garrison. Te-osh is on her patrol, her bed empty, he sighs tries to focus on his toes relaxing, working his way up his ankles and legs to encourage sleep. He hopes Kolivan can get Shiro out, maybe trusting a galra spy is stupid but it’s been a full movement and no one’s attacked, they haven’t been sold out. For the first three quintants Matt made sure to stay near an alarm and be extra vigilant for empire signals.

 

Nothing came, nothing arrived to sweep them from the universe. Kolivan rewarded his trust. He sleeps thinking of Pidge and Kaathe, hoping they’re okay, wishing he could just reach out and tell them he’s okay. He remembers, he remembers the first time he was in a galra ship…

 

“You sure this is okay?” Kaathe sounds really nervous, Matt looks up from his laptop, “heck yeah, I need some practice in actual space, besides with your ship’s array and my programs, not to mention Garrison overrides, we’ll have more than enough time to slip past the satellites and take a quick trip around the immediate celestial neighborhood.”

 

He grins, “besides, I want to see how fast this thing can move,” he sticks a tongue out at Kaathe, “unless everything you said about your piloting skills was hot air?” Even in the dim light of the ship he can see Kaathe bristling.

 

“Hold onto something Matt,” it’s the only warning he gets before the ship jolts upward and they’re moving up through the atmosphere. Matt barely has enough time to activate his program to blind the satellites. By the time he’s settled enough to get comfortable Mars flies by them. It’s been like five minutes.

 

Then comes the asteroid belt, suddenly taunting Kaathe becomes a very very bad idea because the other starts looping and barreling through the dangerous hunks of rock, Matt clings to his chair knuckles white as he grips the bottom of his seat. Two extremely large asteroids start drifting lazily towards each other, oh no, he’s not about too, yep, yes he is. Kaathe dives the ship between them, Matt lets out a small ‘eep.’

 

Only once the sensors indicate the asteroid belt has been cleared does Matt relax, “you could have found a less dramatic way to illustrate your skills you know.”

 

Kaathe just looks smug, “I could have but then that would have been less fun, and you wouldn’t have learned anything about taunting people now would you?” Matt hates him passionately in this moment, and is about to tell him so when he looks out the window.

 

“Is that Jupiter?! It takes our ships way more than what was that like fifteen minutes?” He looks at the ship with new appreciation, “how I would love to check your propulsion systems you beautiful thing you.”

 

“It took closer to thirty minutes but ten of that was dicking around in the asteroid belt,” Kaathe returns, Matt is too busy leaning over him to really care. Then Kaathe has to wreck everything by opening his stupid mouth again, “besides, your ships are flying boxes running on potato batteries, I’m surprised you even have a colony on Mars.”

 

Matt makes an offended sound but before his, surely scathing, response can be delivered Kaathe is up and moving towards the back of the ship. “If you’d like we can walk around on Europa a bit, there are suits in the storage chest over here.” Any annoyance Matt might have had disappears in favor of pure glee.

 

Back in the present Matt drifts off dreaming of happier days.

****

 

 

“So you’re telling me that this arrival is going to happen tonight?” Pidge asks looking up from her fried egg sandwich. Kaathe nods, Colleen makes a thoughtful noise, she’d confirmed the date Matt had given him when she’d examined the cave carvings. “Any idea what this arrival is? The painting seems to show a comet or a meteor.”

 

“Or a ship entering atmosphere,” Kaathe points out, “I think it’s Blue’s pilot.” Colleen nods, “yes, the arrival seems to be the herald of the lion’s awakening.”

 

Kaathe snorts, “she’s plenty awake, she just wont fly for anyone but her pilot. She’s temperamental that way.” Blue takes offense to that, something about her brother and him being one to talk, it’s a jumbled mess of outrage. Colleen grabs one of the sandwiches for herself, “if I hadn’t seen the lion for myself I’d still be dubious but… there’s something about it.”

 

“Her,” Kaathe corrects, Colleen shrugs, but relents, “alright her, I am still skeptical though.” Kaathe drops a huge dollop of ketchup on his sandwich, “don’t look at me like that I haven’t had ketchup in a very long time.” Something about the response is bitter and defensive, and seems to imply a length of time greater than Kaathe’s been on Earth, Pidge doesn’t comment, she just quietly files it away for later.

 

“Either way we need to be ready,” she says, “I’ll need to get back to the Garrison for flight training this afternoon, I’ll keep an eye out until then. Kaathe nods, “I’ve got a pile of stuff ready to go to. I’ll also keep the ship hot just in case.”

 

“Stuff?” Pidge is suspicious especially when Kaathe decides to give her a broad smile that has both Matt’s influence and trouble written all over it. “M’kay then….”

 

Colleen decides to derail any sort of argument before it can start, “I’ll take you back to the bus stop to the base after breakfast, that way you wont be late. Kaathe I’d like to come back and ask you a couple more questions afterwards if you don’t mind.”

 

Pidge nods and packs up her dishes, Kaathe flinches and glowers, “questions wont involve anymore prodding will it? Because that was awkward as fuck and not something I feel like putting up with.” Colleen huffs, “only questions, and language, I can tell by the state of your mane and fur you’re a juvenile. So I expect you to take more care with your words.”

 

Kaathe sticks his tongue out, “you assume my maturation is the same as a terrestrial fauna.” That’s definitely Matt’s influence, Pidge thinks to herself.

****

 

 

She makes it back in time for flight training, the simulation is a theoretical rescue mission to Kerberos. It leaves a bad taste in her mouth to take part in it, there’s also a small amount of resentment towards Lance who not only didn’t listen to her, but also decided to try some stupid stunt that got them all ‘killed’ in a crash. She was this close to punching him, Iverson, and possibly even Hunk for good measure, because everyone involved is officially pissing her off.

 

They also have to clean the vomit out of the engineering box… again. It isn’t until later that evening that she’s allowed any semblance of peace and quiet to prepare for whatever it is that’s set to arrive. Sneaking out of her dorm in the evening is easier than putting up with Lance being a pest. She’s got the patrols memorized and set the cameras to a loop for her escape, they’ll loop again at one when she’s set to come back in.

 

She sets up her rig and puts on her headphones adjusting a series of dials and running the sound through a program to clean it up, she links Kaathe the sound files. “You getting this?” She asks into the headset.

 

“Yeah, give me a second and I’ll tell you what’s going on,” there’s a pause and she can hear them yelling about Voltron, she’s not sure what it is but Kaathe says it has something to do with Blue, that it’s a weapon of some sort.

 

“They’re talking about an escape, sounds like an important prisoner caused some problems and got away, there’s a lot of chaos and someone sounds really angry. They are also supposed to step up their search for Voltron, sounds like their leader is really desperate to get his claws on it.” Interesting, she starts feeding this data into her files, specifically the purple file for information on the galra. Grey sub-folder for the empire.

 

“What are you doing up here?” The voice causes her to jump and yell. Kaathe sounds alarmed, “Pidge, are you okay?” Great not only has she panicked but she panicked her alien too. “I’m fine, my idiot squad just decided to sneak up on me!” She glowers at the two of them.

 

Hunk ignores the glare in favor of checking out the rig, “this isn’t Garrison regulation.” She scoffs, “of course not I built it,” she even managed to steal some software from Kaathe’s ship’s computer and use it to make her programs more accurate. She’s proud of it, and it is taking a truly admirable amount of self control to not brag and spill the whole op right now. She deserves peanut butter cookies for this feat of adamantine willpower. She slaps Hunk’s hand drifting towards the rig’s control, “stop that.”

 

“What is this for even?” Lance looms over her shoulder, she frowns, “I’m listening to aliens talking about a super weapon called Voltron, and my alien buddy is doing translations for me.”

 

Lance glowers at her, “you could have just told me to mind my own business.”

 

She grins, “okay Lance, mind your own business,” then she shoots a glare to Hunk, “last warning Hunk.” Before Hunk can make a noise Kaathe gets on the line, “Pidge, something’s coming this way fast, the ship’s proximity alarms are going nuts, I think it’s galra.”

 

Before she can reply there’s a sound like thunder and a light streaking towards the Earth at an unnatural angle. “I’ll meet you there in fifteen.” Then she stands up and heads straight for the garages.

****

 

 

Shiro pulls up sharply the thermodynamic dampeners working overtime to try and turn the unfathomable kinetic energy and g-forces away from the ship before it tears apart. Shiro is more concerned with avoiding the buildings beneath him worrying about the risk to the Garrison and town. Eventually he manages to crash out in the desert. Taking his shaky hands off the controls of the ship he sighs and leans back in his chair, “made it.”

 

He gives himself five minutes to get up and exit the ship, the ground is still steaming the sand beneath his ship having turned to glass and slag. He’s seen this kind of scorching before, he really doesn’t want to think about the implications of that.

 

The Garrison will be here soon, or he hopes they will. They need to be warned, the galra are coming, they’re coming for Voltron, for Earth and if they’re going to stand a chance at surviving they need to be ready. He doesn’t have to wait long, the trucks all park in front of him, he sags to the ground in relief.

 

He can barely hear the people scrambling to get him, he’s home, he’s finally home….

 

Only it’s not the home he remembers, waking up on a medical bed he struggles against his restraints, “no, no, no, no, no, you don’t understand! I can’t, no! I need to tell you they’re coming we aren’t prepared god, someone please listen to me!”

 

Someone outside his field of vision says to restrain his arm and sedate him. Shiro thrashes against it, “no, you can’t please...” His vision blurs and eventually darkens.

****

 

 

Pidge watches the Garrison medical staff sedate Shiro cursing her inability to do anything worth while. “Dammit, we have to help him!” Lance shouts right in her ear. She is already fed up with tonight, nothing is going according to plan, Shiro’s back, but he’s alone, where’s the rest of the crew? The Garrison is keeping him in quarantine which okay yeah she gets it but still! And Lance and Hunk decided to tag along and make her life even more complicated.

 

“We can’t do anything right now Lance! The Garrison is crawling all over this place so unless you have a distraction planned I suggest you zip it and let me think!” She rubs her temples wracking her brain for something, anything to help with this situation.

 

“Pidge,” Kaathe’s voice crackles to life, “can you hot wire the truck the Garrison’s storing that galra escape pod in? I have a plan but I’ll need you to be our getaway driver.” Pidge frowns, “no I don’t know how to hot wire a Garrison car, and that type isn’t self driving...” Then an idea hits her, “Hunk, Lance you want to be useful?”

 

Hunk and Lance exchange a look, Lance opens his mouth and says “what do we need to do?” At the same time Hunk replies, “I’m not really comfortable with this.”

 

“I have a friend arranging a distraction, Hunk, you hot wire the truck with the ship, Lance you be ready to put the pedal to the metal as soon as we have Shiro.” Lance balks, “driver? Uh-uh, no way, I’m saving Shiro that guys my idol!”

 

“Lance, listen to me carefully, whatever distraction my friend has planned isn’t going to last forever, Shiro is the best lead I have on my family. Kaathe can get Shiro out, I can blind the cameras. You two want to help? Then Hunk is going to get that truck working, and you are going to be behind the wheel and ready to go as soon as we have Shiro on board. Am I being clear?” Lance and Hunk swallow and nod emphatically.

 

“Alright Kaathe we’ll have the vehicle ready to go let me know when you’re moving in.” There’s no verbal reply, what there is is a bright light streaking from the direction of the plateau and into a cliff about a mile away from the quarantine site and a very intense explosion.

 

As soon as the guards are clear they make their move and sneak to the truck, “what do we do about the guards?” Lance whispers, to which she smiles, “nothing. That’s what he’s for.”

 

On cue Kaathe who had silently gotten into position leaps onto one guard and kicks the second into a wall. Quickly she moves to tie them both up handing Lance some duct tape. “Hunk get the truck up and running, Lance bind his wrists.” Kaathe is already pulling out his knife and cutting through the doors into the labs.

 

“So,” Lance squeaks, “that’s your back up?” She looks at him, “don’t worry Kaathe’s cool,” there’s a large commotion inside and several pained yelps and thumps. “As long as you don’t piss him off.”

****

 

 

Twenty minutes later and they’ve managed to crash the truck into a ravine, intentionally for once, and decided to hike through the rocky scrubland to avoid being followed. “So...” Hunk breaks the silence, “we’re traveling with an alien, and I mean, you seem like a cool guy, definitely not someone I want to make mad but you know cool enough. Shiro seemed pretty adamant about the aliens being bad.”

 

Kaathe shrugs, the shoulder not occupied by Shiro, “most galra aren’t very friendly, hell I’m not friendly, but I’m also not a kidnapping psychopath so that puts me above most other galra.”

 

Hunk blanches, Lance however looks between he and Pidge, “how the hell do you know the Garrison Ghoul?” That earns him a growl, and he flinches and puts Pidge between him and Kaathe.

 

“First of all Lance, he hates that term, his name is Kaathe,” Lance nods at that, “second he’s a friend of my brother’s, the two of them were hanging out before Kerberos.” Kaathe’s ears flatten a bit, and Pidge puts a hand on his arm and give it a squeeze which earns her a grateful smile. “Lastly, he’s been chatting online for a while. I still can’t believe you joined a cryptids enthusiast server.”

 

Kaathe shrugs in response, “the Cuban invited me.”

 

Lance stops at that, “WHAT!? I’ve been arguing xenobiology and flight with an alien this whole time!?”

****

 

 

Shiro dreams, he’s back in the arena the stink of sweat, unwashed bodies, and death. Yellow eyes jeering from the stands. Sendak taunting him about how much GAC he’s made off the champion’s fights. That his life was just a tool for galra entertainment and profit. The images are brief and brutal and he can see a violet sphere of lethal energy careening towards him, but before it hits him he wakes up.

 

At first it feels like he’s back in his cell, it’s dark and cool, what he’s laying on is more a collection of blankets and… sleeping bags? The events start bleeding back into his mind. The crash, the Garrison, the galra, they’re coming. He can hear some faint argumentative tones coming from down the cave. Standing up Shiro slowly makes his way out of the nest and into the cave proper which opens up to a large open space.

 

“We can’t go back to the Garrison they’ll arrest us on sight! They weren’t even listening to Shiro.” There’s a group of people talking about something, likely the Garrison, which had captured him. Which means that this is the group that rescued him. Two kids and… His mind goes blank and he doesn’t think he just acts, his arm igniting.

 

“Matt look out!” Shiro dives between the person who looks like Matt and the galra. The voice that shouts “SHIRO WHAT THE HELL?!” is not Matt’s. The galra just stares down at his arm his growl petering out, then he just looks unimpressed; “I’m sorry I cannot find you threatening knowing that you cried at a bunch of coyote puppies.” Like that Shiro’s arm goes out and he’s overcome by mortification, _how does he know about that?_ A skinny boy who just walked in behind him laughs a little and chokes out a “what the what?” While his bigger friend just gives a soft ‘aw.’ Shiro can feel his face heating a bit as he mumbles “they were just so small.” Not Matt is just laughing their ass off, “oh my god I remember that road trip, Matt just made sure you were equipped to mock all of us didn’t he?” The galra shrugs.

 

Shiro looks between them squinting at the human of the two, “Katie?” She turns to him and tries to shush him when the other two humans burst out with “Katie?!” She just frowns, “great job Shiro, I was using an alias, even the alien knew that.” The person in question leans in, “that would be me by the way, in case you do have brain damage.”

 

Shiro sighs, “yeah I got that,” his voice drips with a venom he will eventually come to regret, “you’re _galra_.” Kaathe shrinks back so hard that he seems to halve in height, his ears folding back and his voice quiet, “not by choice.” Shiro continues to stare at him gaze hard, which is a mistake because in the time she’s out of view Katie decides to drive her foot, clad in steel toed hiking boots, into his shin. “Ow, what the-” Katie cuts him off with a look, “don’t you even start, Kaathe’s been out here trying to help me get Matt back for months, he helped me rescue you, so don’t even start with me _Takashi_.”

 

Uh oh, given name, Shiro has enough awareness to know deep shit when he’s landed in it. “Sorry, I didn’t know, no, that’s no excuse, I’m sorry,” he holds out his hand, the alien stares at it for minute. “’s okay, I get it, the galra aren’t really kind to their prisoners,” there’s a lot packed into that statement, a lot that Shiro can’t help but sympathize with. The alien takes his hand, “Takashi Shirogane,” he introduces himself, the galra nods, “I’m Kaathe.”

****

 

 

Shiro freezes for a minute and Kaathe’s worried he’s tripped over some sort of trauma for a minute. “Matt’s mentioned you,” something on his face must have shown because Shiro’s quick to add, “nothing too telling, he went out of his way to avoid talking about you too much.” Then Shiro flinches because that doesn’t exactly sound good either.

 

Kaathe just nods, “good, I hate having people talk behind my back.” Shiro gives him a weird look, there’s shock and a small amount of apprehension in it but also something bizarrely longing. He shoots him a questioning look.

 

“So let me get this straight,” Lance interrupts and it manages avoid awkward well enough that Kaathe sighs in relief. “Pidge’s name is Katie, Shiro was kidnapped by aliens, the same aliens that the ghoul-” Kaathe growls, Lance flinches, “sorry, Kaathe is, and was apparently bffs with half my server?”

 

Shiro seems very lost, which yeah, fair, Pidge shrugs like this whole situation is entirely reasonable and Lance is being overly dramatic. “Pretty much, yeah.” Lance makes a couple outraged noises when his friend, ‘Hunk,’ leans in, “dude what is your life?”

 

Lance shoots him a dirty look, “I don’t even know man, also it’s your life now too.” Shiro interrupts them, “what’s important is the galra are coming here, they’re looking for something called Voltron, they think a part of it is on Earth.”

 

Kaathe stiffens, and Pidge looks at him, “is he talking about Blue?” Kaathe nods, “yeah, and if they’re looking for Blue the witch is probably involved.” Shiro’s hand unconsciously drifts to his arm.

 

The group is escorted by their cryptid host to a side cave with carvings all around it, “at least we wont have to look for it.” Shiro says, then they all freeze, and everyone gets their first look of exactly what Voltron is.

 

“Oh my god, Voltron’s a giant, cool, robot!” Hunk exclaims Kaathe lets out a breath of amazement, “she’s never done that before.” Shiro looks at the particle barrier, “any idea how to get in?”

 

Lance marches up to the robot, “maybe you just have to knock?” He taps the barrier which promptly drops and everyone stands stunned for a moment. Kaathe breaks the silence first, “really? Him?” Lance is about to reply when Blue roars. Kaathe throws up his hands in defeat, “welp, you officially have a giant blue robot nanny congratulations.”

****

 

 

“You need to let your mom know first,” Kaathe crosses his arms, and stares the small human down. Pidge responds with a glare of her own, Shiro steps in “he’s right Katie you shouldn’t even be going out there with us.” Kaathe backs off a little bit and she glares at Shiro who actually manages to hold his ground. “I’m not leaving Matt or my father out there, mom already knows if I have a shot I’m going to take it.”

 

Shiro looks at Kaathe who nods, “it’s true, but she also made you promise that if you do find a way you at least let her know. And that you contact her at any opportunity.” Shiro is left wondering exactly how much he’s missed in his year away. Apparently Matt befriended a galra long before they left for Kerberos and then after the mission went dark Katie, now going by her brother’s teasing nickname followed in his tracks.

 

She looks between the two of them and makes a disgusted noise, “ugh, I can’t win against two of you. Fine I’ll go call my mom.” Kaathe manages a smug look that was clearly learned from Matt, “you’ll thank us when you don’t come home and find yourself grounded till you’re eighty.”

 

“What about you two?” He looks over at Lance and Hunk. “Well we’re just going to go stop the cruiser headed towards Earth right?” Kaathe frowns, “Blue wont let me fly her, you’re her pilot.”

 

Lance frowns at this, “we’ll drop you off somewhere then?” Kaathe looks unimpressed, “get us on the cruiser and Pidge and I can do the rest.”

 

Lance nods, “yeah, okay I can do that.” Hunk raises his hand, “wait, guys, can’t we maybe just give them the lion then they’ll leave us alone?” Shiro looks Hunk in the eye and says, “you don’t understand, these monsters enslave and destroy worlds, they spread like a plague and leave nothing in their wake but misery and death.”

 

He notices the glare from Pidge when she returns and manages to flinch, “present company accepted.” Kaathe shrugs, but the sag in his ears and posture says enough about his feelings. “It’s the truth,” that simple statement coming from Kaathe only manages to cause Pidge’s glare to intensify and Shiro knows if looks could kill he’d be a greasy pile of ash right now.

 

Once they have a suitable message set for the relevant parties everyone piles into the lion and sets off. None too soon because as soon as they hit the upper atmosphere there’s a proximity alarm that shows an incoming cruiser. “Don’t yank on the controls Lance,” Kaathe chides which earns him a glare and an “I know what I’m doing.” Kaathe arcs a brow, “really? Because I don’t know much about Blue and I’ve lived with her for like two and a half years.”

 

“Yeah well she’s not feeding you information directly to your brain is she?” Lance retorts which earns him a laugh from Kaathe who says, “not piloting information at any rate.” Lance narrows his eyes suspiciously Kaathe shrugs, “we talk.”

 

Pidge puts herself between them and says, “guys, later, they’re charging weapons.” And almost immediately after she says that the craft starts bristling with laser fire and Lance is forced to execute a number of hair maneuvers to avoid getting hit. The lion dives forward and manages to gouge a hole in the hull of the ship, “Lance can you get Pidge and I on to the ship at all?”

 

“No, not possible, I’ll be honest with you the only reason we aren’t filled with slagged holes right now is because of Blue.” The galra ship turns to follow them, and Blue jumps causing the whole ship to lurch slightly. Looking a the feeds they can see Kerberos drift by outside, they’ve reached the edge of the solar system. “That’s Kerberos, we just did a jump in like five seconds that takes our ships months!”

 

Blue roars and a shimmering gateway opens in front of them, “uh, guys, I think that’s a wormhole,” Pidge says. “Blue says it’s the way ‘home’ I think she wants us to go through.” Everyone looks at each other, Pidge and Kaathe are already resolved to go, Shiro came back to warn them. “This is a decision we all have to make,” Shiro looks at Lance and Hunk, no pressure in his gaze, just a simple desire to know their thoughts.

 

Lance looks at the swirling vortex, he looks to Hunk, “whatever you choose I’ll go along.” Lance nods, “alright guys, let’s do this.” The lion hits the portal which slams shut in the face of the approaching cruiser. The group taking their first step into a vast unknown.

**Author's Note:**

> Done as my Nanowrimo for this year I'll be updating it a bit over the month then a major update after all's said and done in nano. This being my first one the chapters might meander a bit just a heads up. This is gifted to discordiansamba because her running gag of Keith being declared local cryptid gives me so much life. Cover art done by the amazing https://bleakbog.tumblr.com/ who you should go check out because they are fantastic and amazing.


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